Not All Who Wander Are Lost
by sawelter
Summary: Katherine, an unassuming girl recently graduated from college, stumbles onto the Winchesters after she's attacked by a ghost and asks to travel with them, or at least work a case. They reluctantly agree to allow her to help them.
1. Sam

**Chapter 1**

Today's my first day at Harvard. I had been at UCSD, but I'd wanted to take some time off from classroom learning so I'm going to be working with a professor at Harvard on some psychology studies he's doing.

I'm taking a few classes here in other areas I'm interested in, primarily philosophy and similar subjects, though I'm not getting credits for them. I've got all my books, found my apartment, introduced myself to the professor I'll be working with, and I should be excited about all of this, but… I'm bored.

As a voracious reader, I'm nearly constantly in fictitious worlds and I never have appreciated "real life" as much as I should. A kid who's only lived in foster homes getting as far as working at Harvard should appreciate that, right? But I just feel like I'm doing the same thing as a billion other people before me, regardless of their backgrounds. There's nothing _exciting_ going on.

Still, I go to my first class: Mythology 101. I sit down, pull out my dingy laptop and glance around at the other students. A girl in all black clothes sits down next to me.

"Hey," I say cheerfully. I'm a friendly person, despite being a loner. I'm the type of person who's friends with everyones but at the same time friends with no one. The girl just glares in response, so I turn away and look to my other side. It's a boy in glasses, looking the part of a nerd with a pocket protector and suspenders and everything.

"Hey," I say to him.

He smiles. "Hey."

The lights flicker and we both glance up at them.

"Yeah, those have been doing that lately," he says, a little apologetically as if it's his responsibility to make sure the lights are working well. He holds out a hand for me to shake and I shake it. "I'm Robert. A junior here, mastering in science."

"Katherine. I'm working with one of the psychology professors here, just taking some extra classes on the side."

Just then the teacher walks in, and immediately steps up to the board and writes his name on it in bold, capital letters. "Mr. White," he announces once he finishes, as if we can't read.

The lights flicker again and I feel a draft of cold air. The people around me seem to notice it too, because they tense up a little bit and shiver.

"Today, I'll just be going over the course syllabus and expectations," Mr. White tells us all. "Now, take a sheet and pass them down…"

Just as he gives a stack of papers to a girl in the front, a scream echoes down the hall. Mr. White freezes. "Everyone stay here, I'll see what's going on."

He rushes out of the classroom. Everyone stays in their seats for a few seconds before an entire mob crowds to the door. I can't help it, I'm among them; I'm curious to know what's going on. Those closest to the door are peeking out, watching Mr. White run down the hall to a hysterical girl. There are a few other teachers already around her, asking what's wrong.

After a few minutes, a few phone calls, and a lot of worried looks, Mr. White comes back, looking startled.

"Class dismissed," he says, upon seeing the crowd of us near the door. "We'll go over the syllabus on Thursday."

"What happened?" someone calls.

"Um," he starts. "We're not entirely sure yet."

The entire group is still curious. When we walk out of class, I hear everyone around me speculating about what happened. A few security guards are blocking off the girls' bathroom in the hallway.

"What happened?" I ask them tentatively. Something's happening here, or happened, and it's impossible not to be incredibly curious, even though I know it's none of my business.

"Suicide," one of them says bluntly.

I'm surprised. It's the first day of school. Who would… end it, on the first day, a fresh beginning?

Still, I put the thoughts aside and go to the library to flip through my textbooks for my next few classes.

As I walk through the entrance, I see a boy a couple of years older than I am checking out a small pile of books. He's got dark brown eyes and hair, and he's wearing a jacket that looks a little warm for the late August weather. _Demons_, one of his books says. Another says, _Revelations_. The third one is _Angels and Their Interactions with Human Kind_.

I approach the boy, wondering if he's mastering in the same area I've just started studying. "Are you taking a religious studies course, or something?"

He stares at me for a few moments. "I guess you could say that."

I smile. "Cool. I'm studying some of that stuff too, though I'm a psychology major. Science is nice, but sometimes the fantastical is a nice break. I almost wish it was true sometimes…" The boy raises his eyebrows, with a half-smile, like he just got a joke that I missed. I continue, "Anyway, what's your thesis?"

The boy shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "It's… an analysis of the relationship between heaven, hell, and earth," he says. He still has an amused look on his face.

"Thus the books," I say, gesturing at the pile of books on demons and angels.

"Yep." He smiles. "Listen, I've gotta go, but, nice to meet you, um…?"

"Katherine."

"Nice to meet you, Katherine. I'm Sam. Hope I run into you again." With a brief smile, he picks up his load and walks out of the library.

When I sit down at a table to flip through my philosophy book, I hear a girl sobbing at the table next to me. She's surrounded by friends, all murmuring softly to her.

"It's just…" I hear her say. "It's just Amy wouldn't have just _killed_ herself… I thought… I thought she was just going to the bathroom, she didn't really seem upset before but I should've noticed something, it's my fault…"

I could give this girl a lecture on the psychological explanation of why she feels like she does and why it's really not her fault that her friend died. Lots of people kill themselves without seeming off from their usual cheery selves, but it's hardly ever somebody's fault in particular, and especially not when it's just a matter of failure of prevention.

That might be my job someday, as a shrink. Telling people things are going to be all right when it doesn't seem like they will be.

Her words do spark a bit of interest, though, since she claimed her perfectly happy friend was just stopping by a bathroom. It doesn't really seem like an ideal place to end one's life, not in the middle of a school day.

The next morning, I pick up a university paper at a coffee shop on campus. There it is, on the second page: "Girl slits wrists in bathroom."

I read the article. The girl had no history of psychological issues, depression, bipolar; no history in her family; no problems in her life that anybody knew about. A slight investigation was being held, but murder was considered unlikely. It strikes me as strange. Strange, but possible, I suppose. In all the research I'd done for all my papers, I've rarely come across something like this.

I've just about dismissed the entire thing until a week later, when I'm on my way from one of my classes to meet the professor I'm going to be working with, and it happens again. Not a scream this time. Just shouts. Desperate and panicked shouts for help.

It's on the floor below where I am, so I run down the stairs. I see a guy telling the worried teachers surrounding him something and it's evident what he's talking about. Just behind him is a boy's body, soaking in a pool of blood. His wrists are slit.

A teacher shoos everyone away before we can get a closer look. An ambulance is already pulling up outside and I see paramedics running to the building with a stretcher. I'm really curious to find out what's happened, but everyone at the scene is being hurried away and I don't have a chance to object.

I've just stepped outside the building a few minutes later when I see Sam. He's wearing a suit and tie, along with another man next to him. The first thought that runs through my mind is _was he on his way to a funeral?_ But, because of my love of fiction, the second thought is, _undercover agent_. What if he was just _pretending_ to be a student here because he was investigating these wrist-slittings because… because they're actually _murder_? This thought is reinforced when he and the man next to him pull out official looking badges and flash them to the security guards and police on the scene, guarding the entrance of the building. They walk into the building, to the suicide victim and out of sight.

Even if they're not undercover agents, there is definitely something up. I decide to stick around to find out. I plop down on a bench nearby and watch the building, pulling out a textbook so I can pretend to look busy.

When Sam and his friend come out of the building twenty minutes later, they're talking intently about something. I spring to my feet and walk over to meet them.

"…Probably a ghost," Sam is saying. He hasn't noticed me yet.

"Hey, Sam," I say. "What's up?"

"Oh… Uh, hi, Katherine," he says, looking startled and a little flustered.

The man next to him mutters something under his breath. I wonder who he is. He looks a little older than average college age, with short light-brown hair and green-hazel eyes.

"We're a little busy now," the guy says with a sarcastically apologetic shrug. "Talk to my partner later."

They start to walk away, Sam glancing back at me and shrugging his shoulders, his expression saying _sorry_.

I'm still curious. I quicken my pace and walk next to them. "Partner? Aren't you students?"

They stop again to look at me. The other guy starts to say something but Sam makes a slight motion for him to shut up. "Yeah. We're pledges. We were supposed to—" he leans in a little closer and glances around like he's worried someone will hear "—find a way to get in to look at the suicide victim."

"Oh. Well." I'm still suspicious. "When did you get those badges made? Did you…" I trail off. It's like they knew this was going to happen and made fake badges just for that. There are a few possibilities racing through my mind, but they're interrupted.

"Look, lady," Sam's 'partner' says. "We'd love to stay and chat but we really have to get back to our frat house. They'll be expecting us."

Before I can say another word, they're hurrying off again, muttering at each other furiously in whispers. I stare after them, speechless.

Something's not right. I make up my mind to follow them. But by the time I decide to do that, they're around the corner and gone.


	2. Ghost Girl

A few days later, I'm walking home from the library after doing some late-night research for a beginning-of-the-year project I'm working on for my mythology class. I yawn. It has to be about eleven at night, and the streets and sidewalks are pretty much deserted.

I was having trouble getting work done so I stayed longer than I expected, because I was thinking too much about Sam and his friend and the suicides. Even though I haven't seen them since that day, they're still on my mind.

I glance down at my shoes while I walk for a second, and when I look back up, somebody's standing twenty feet away from me.

It's a girl, I can tell that much, standing out in the darkness because of her pale white skin. I wonder what she's doing here, just standing, motionless, in the middle of the street. After a brief pause of surprise, I keep walking. As I start get closer, I see she's wearing normal clothes, a t-shirt and jeans and black converse shoes.

But then I see something that makes me freeze. This isn't just some college girl. This is… I don't know what it is. There's bright red dripping from her wrists. I look to see the source of it and spy long red gashes on her wrists.

And despite her dripping blood like crazy, the ground is still somehow clean of the red. She doesn't make a sound as she slowly advances towards me. I back away as she comes closer, but I trip over my own feet and fall to the ground.

The girl raises a hand towards me and I feel a piercing pain on my right arm. A deep gash is starting on the inside of my arm, slowly slicing downwards towards my hand. I let out a gasp, partly from surprise but mostly just from the pain.

I'm paralyzed as the pain becomes overwhelming, the gash starting to pour blood as it keeps running down my arm. I'm staring at the cut on one arm and then I feel the slicing start on the other.

A sound explodes and rings out in the street, the sound of a shotgun. Suddenly the cutting on my wrists stops. The slits are still deep and bloody, each of them halfway down my forearm, but at least it's not getting any worse.

I look up at what stopped the girl. It's… Sam? What's he doing here? The man who was with him earlier is also here, holding up a smoking gun pointed at where the girl was. She's gone. I don't know where.

Sam rushes over to my side, pulling off his green jacket. "Katherine," he says as he kneels down and helps wrap the jacket around my bleeding wrists. "Are you okay?"

I let out a short sob. "Of course I'm n-not okay," I stutter. "I just got attacked by a… a who-knows-what and there's m-more blood coming out of my arms th-than I've ever seen in my entire life."

He helps me up gently, not touching anywhere near my wrists at all. "It's going to be all right."

The other guy is looking around warily. "Hurry up, Sam," he says impatiently. "We've gotta get to the cemetery before she tries to kill anyone else."

I have no idea what he's talking about. I have a panicked feeling, and a sense that the girl wasn't human, not anymore; she was a ghost. But ghosts aren't real, right?

"One minute, Dean," Sam says before turning back to me. "We're going to take you to the hospital, okay?"

"The hospital? What?" I ask, staring at both of them in confusion at everything that has happened and is happening. "No. I think you have a little bit of explaining to do, Sam."

He lets out an exasperated huff. "Fine. But let's get to the car first."

I follow the two of them to the car, a shiny black car that looks in good shape but in a style from at least forty years ago. Sam opens the door for me and I climb in the back. He goes and grabs something from the trunk and slides into the seat next to me.

Once the car starts rolling, I say, "So? What's going on?" Sam has a roll of bandages now and he's wrapping up my arms tightly. The agony is intense and I have to concentrate on anything else besides to even be able to tolerate it.

Dean's driving the car, staring ahead at the road intensely, his jaw set. Sam looks up at me. "You know those monsters you were afraid of when you were little? Every ghost story you've ever heard? The angels and demons in the Bible?" It sounds like something he's practiced, repeated to so many people that he's just given up on creating a whole new spiel every time.

I nod slowly.

"They're all real."

It takes half a minute to process all this before I nod slowly. So that girl _was_ a ghot. "Okay."

Dean glances back at me. "No 'You guys are crazy' or 'I don't believe you'?"

"I have an open mind." That's definitely true. I've always wanted there to be something more than there is. I've just had no evidence, until now. And I'm not going to deny that evidence, not when it's just sitting right in front of me.

"That girl was a ghost?" I ask.

"Yes. It's the anniversary of her death this week and she's making it known," Sam says.

"How did she die?" I ask with a morbid curiosity.

"She killed herself," Dean says bluntly.

"How do you know about this stuff?"

"We're hunters. We've been finding these things our entire lives and killing them," Sam tells me.

"And now we're going where?"

"The hospital," Sam says.

"Wait," I say indignantly. "You can't just take me to the hospital in the middle of a ghost hunt." As if to disprove my point, the car goes over a bump that causes my arms to be jolted and I whimper. I immediately retaliate and try to look fierce to offset my moment of weakness. "What would you, after you took me to the hospital, anyway?"

"Salt and burn the bones," Dean says matter-of-factly.

"So, I can go with you, right? Please let me go," I beg them. I can't believe it. It's like I'm living in one of those adventures I'd read about. I'd always fantasized about going on one, though usually I never imagined it this way, with my arms cut halfway open.

"No," Sam and Dean say at the same time.

"_Please_," I say emphatically. "I promise I won't get in your way."

"Still no," Dean says.

I stare at Sam pleadingly. "Please."

The two of them glance at each other and a tacit exchange goes between them.

"Fine. We'll take you, if it means you'll shut up," Dean says.

"But the hospital straight after," Sam adds.

I grin and lean back in the seat.

After an hour and a half of me chattering nervously to the quiet brothers, we pull into a cemetery. The pain in my arms is just a dull throb now, diminished with the strong pressure from the bandages.

I help the boys look for the gravestone of Rose Jones, and then sit on the ground nearby as they dig up the earth.

Finally they hit wood. The coffin. I lean forward in anticipation as the yank open the lid of the coffin.

The smell hits me first. It's not as strong as I imagined it would be from what I read in books, and it's different, probably embalming chemicals. The image is another thing. It's grisly. A half-rotted body, buried in the ground…

Sam and Dean hardly even hesitate before climbing out of the grave, pouring salt and lighter fluid over the body, and then tossing in a pack of lit matches. They've probably done this a thousand times.

"Now what?" I say.

"Now, hopefully, her spirit won't be haunting around here anymore," Sam says. "Let's go to the hospital now."

I don't really want to go, to leave these two hunters of the paranormal. But I also don't want to bleed to death, so I sit in silence as we drive to the hospital.

Twenty minutes before we're back in the college town where the night started, I ask, "Will you let me come with you?"

Both of them look back in surprise. "What?" they say at the same time.

"I don't know quite how to explain it," I start. "It's just... I've always wanted... more, I guess. From life. The normal life, going to college, finding a job, getting married, and having kids… that's all I thought there was, even though I hoped for more. But now… Now I know there's more and I don't _want_ to be normal."

Dean mutters, "How ironic."

Sam glares at him. He must understand what Dean's talking about even if I don't. He turns around in his seat and looks me in the eyes. "Listen, Katherine… You don't want this life. No one _chooses_ this life. It chooses them. Every single hunter we know, they lost someone they loved. That's how they got into hunting. Because they had no choice. Dean and I, we know a normal life is a blessing. Because we don't have a home. We don't allow ourselves to love anyone because with us, they'll probably die. Do you understand? This life isn't a privilege, it's a burden."

I understand. I just don't care. I've never, ever had anyone I loved. My parents were dead before I learned how to talk. Every foster home I went through made me more and more of a loner. The only people I've ever even cared about in the slightest are characters in books.

"I have nothing, _nobody_, to lose, Sam. I've been on my own since I was a baby. I've always thought I never mattered. But I could _save_ people, like you saved me! Just… please. Please just think about it."

Sam furrows his eyebrows, looking concerned. Dean cuts in. "Even if you are insane enough to want this life, you can't come with _us_. See, we're kind of like lone wolves. We work best without anyone—"

"We'll think about it, Katherine," Sam interrupts. Dean grumbles something under his breath furiously.

We pull up to the hospital and Sam walks me in. Dean stays in the car, still looking angry. Before I go to the counter for help, I ask Sam, "Will you still be here, when they're done patching me up?"

He smiles at me, a hint of sadness in his eyes. "Of course, Katherine."

I grin at him and go to tell the woman at the desk about my cuts. I get help pretty quickly when I hold up my wrists and show the bloody bandages.

When I walk back into the waiting room an hour, twenty stitches, and a pile of painkillers later, Sam's gone.


	3. Investigation

After depressingly trudging through my few classes and helping the professor learn how honesty works for nearly a week, something shows up that wakes me up out of my dejectedness: another suicide. The newspaper says it was somewhere else on campus, and the circumstances seem just as suspicious as before. No big problems, no history of depression in herself or the family, big plans for the future.

Sam and Dean didn't quite finish their job here. I wonder if they know. I wonder if they'll be back. If they do come back, will I even run into them? I wish I'd had the foresight to pick up their phone number or something.

The best chance I have is to look for the ghost myself.

After experiencing what that ghost could do, I'm not just about to rush into battle without any plan. I decide to do some research.

Even with the internet to speed up the process, it takes a long time it's hard to tell what's credible and what's not. To start, I open up a fresh spiral-bound notebook and write in bold letters at the top: Ghost Hunting.

Under that, I write what I know. Dean used a shotgun with who-knows-what ammunition to get the ghost to disappear for a short time. To get a ghost to disappear for good, you have to salt and burn the remains. For some reason, that didn't work this time, though Sam and Dean seemed pretty confident that it would work, so there must have been something unusual about the case.

It takes hours to find a website that at least matches with the information I have, about salting and burning the remains. "Ghostfacers," the website is called. I click on a video, which tells me how to defend oneself: iron and salt. Destroying the ghost requires salting and burning _all_ the remains, including what might not be buried with the body. Any DNA will do: hair, fingernail clippings, there are so many things could be tying a spirit to the world.

The two guys in the video credit those "douche bag" Winchester brothers for this information. Sounds kind of like Sam and Dean. I would classify them as douche bags, for leaving me like they did. I bet that's who they're talking about.

Anyway, I put the two of them out of my mind and scribble down a note about the remains; there must be something keeping the ghost around still.

Next, I do some research on Ms. Rose Jones. Born and raised in the very town where I'm attending college. Her mother is her only family that's left, and she's a professor here.

If anyone would know where a spare bit of Rose would be, it would be her. I should go talk to her.

The next day, I dress up a little nicer than usual and visit her office. I knock and the woman who opens the door looks kind, with crows' feet at the corners of her eyes and wrinkles around her mouth that show she's smiled a lot. Even so, she looks like an organized type of person, her salt-and-pepper hair parted down the middle and neatly framing her face.

"Hi, Dr. Jones?" I ask. She nods. I'm not quite sure exactly how to start. I knew I was going to tell her the truth, from the moment I decided to talk to her. "Can you talk? It's really important."

"Of course, dear," she says, opening her office door wider and inviting me in. Once I'm settled in on a chair across from her with a cup of tea in hand, she asks, "Are you one of my students?"

"Not exactly," I say. "It's… it's about your daughter."

The sweet smile on her face fades into a worried expression. "What about her?"

"Well… it's complicated. I'm going to have to start by saying ghosts are real. I know it's hard to believe, but trust me. And… your daughter, I know she killed herself but now she's haunting the school, and killing people. She tried to kill me, actually—" I show her my wrists briefly before rushing on "—but I was saved just in time. And the guys who saved me thought they got rid of your daughter's ghost but she's still around and I need to know if you have any of her remains still around, like a lock of hair, maybe?"

Mrs. Jones is frozen, looking absolutely stricken. She slowly rises to her feet and points at the door. "Get out."

"But ma'am, I'm trying to _save_ people!"

"Get _out_ of my office," she says forcefully.

"Please, you have to believe me! People are dying!"

"Get out!" she yells.

I'm about to protest but she's shaking so much that I just walk out the door and towards the exit of the building, glancing over my shoulder as I go at the stricken face of the woman. That did not go at all as I expected. I thought she would understand, and I could go and salt and burn that last piece of Rose's existence and then the university would be safe again.

I guess I was just being naive.

"Katherine?"

I whip my head up at hearing my name, coming from a voice I recognize. The two hunters. Instead of their regular clothes, they're wearing suits and ties again.

"S-Sam?" I'm surprised at first, then angry. Sam backs away slowly when he sees the murderous look on my face. "You promised," I growl. "You promised you would wait for me, and then think about letting me come with you."

"Things… got complicated," he says lamely. Dean just stands behind him looking amused.

"Complicated? I think you're just to much of a wuss to tell me to my face that you don't want to have me along helping you. You're too much of a wuss to tell me what you thought, that I'm insane and should be locked up for wanting a life like yours!"

"Katherine, it's not—"

"Why are you back anyway? Not for me. I didn't think you'd come back at all, even with the new 'suicide.' I bet you're going to see Mrs. Jones about her daughter. I've already been there, though, ahead of you. She's not going to tell you anything."

Sam and Dean freeze, their eyes wide. "What did you do?" Dean asks slowly.

"I went and told her the truth. That her daughter's a ghost and is killing people and we need to destroy the last of her remains."

"And?"

"She yelled at me and made me leave."

Dean looks like he wants to kill me. "Goddammit!"

Sam looks frustrated too, but he has the good grace to try and hide it.

"I'm sorry, I thought I could help!"

"You thought wrong!" Dean says furiously.

"Dean, it's okay," Sam says. "Maybe we don't go talk to her. We can go into her office tonight, see if there's anything there."

"I'm coming," I say determinedly.

"You've done enough," Dean says angrily.

"He's right, Katherine. I think maybe you should sit this one out. You could get hurt"

That's it. That's what pushes me over the edge. I step closer to him quickly and slap him. He takes a few steps back, holding his hand to his cheek and looking surprised. "Get hurt? _Get hurt?_ I've already been hurt. I have two deep cuts on my wrists that hurt like hell but that I like having because it means there's something more out there than what people think is true. But more than that, I'm hurt that you left me at the hospital. If you hadn't, I might not have screwed up your hunt. But you did, so you have no one to blame but yourselves."

There's an awkward moment of silence. "Fine," Sam says, finally giving in. "You can come." He's still holding a hand to his face, which must be stinging.

Dean crosses his arms. "Katherine, can you give us a moment?"

He and Sam walk a few feet down the hall and whisper at each other heatedly. They come back a few moments later. "Just this once, though, okay?" Dean says.

Just this once is better than nothing. I can't help it. I grin.

Sam takes a deep breath. "Well, we've got about—" he glances at his watch "—ten hours to kill. How about we meet at that restaurant about a block from here at midnight?"

"Nuh-uh. No way. Last time you said you would wait for me, you _left_."

"Touché, Sammy," Dean says with a grin.

"I'm coming with you. To wherever you're going," I say, putting my hands on my hips. "You can show me your supernatural database or whatever."

Sam pouts for a moment. "Fine."

"Fine," Dean says with a shrug.

"Fine," I say. "Let's go."


	4. Joining the team

Twenty minutes later, we arrive at a motel on the outskirts of town. SUNFLOWER HOTEL, the sign reads.

Dean unlocks the door and we walk in. Besides being cheesy and sunflower-themed, the room is kind of depressing. The two of them must have been living here for a while, at least since the suicides started a few weeks ago, but the room looks unlived-in. The only thing that marks that the room is being used is the pages of notes and printouts spread all along one wall, a few empty food wrappings on the table, and a couple of bags in the corner.

The emptiness reminds me of my room.

I walk over to look at the wall covered in papers. Mostly there's notes about Rose. A map of the area around Cambridge with an X on the cemetery where she was buried. Sticky notes with phone numbers on them.

"Do you do this with every case you do?" I ask them. They're standing a few feet away, watching me analyze everything.

"Usually we don't know what we're dealing with," Dean says. "You should see the wall of research then."

"What about your weapons? Where are they? You had a shotgun when you rescued me."

Dean looks at me suspiciously. "Why do you want to know about our weapons?"

"Well, if I'm going to be a hunter, I should learn the tools of the trade."

"Katherine, we talked about this," Sam says pleadingly. "You don't _want_ to be a hunter, not if you don't have to be."

"Fine then. I'm just interested in seeing these weapons, then."

Dean pulls out a flask and starts unscrewing the top. I raise an eyebrow. Is he drinking?

I'm a little surprised when he splashes it on me.

"What the hell?" I ask in a whiny voice.

"Holy water. Just taking precautions," Dean says. "You're not being possessed by a demon. In case you were wondering."

"What?"

"It's a little weird when someone asks to see your collection of knives. Wanted to make sure you weren't sent from hell to take the Colt or our special knife."

"What?" I frown in confusion.

He just smiles. "Come on. It's in the trunk of the car."

I follow him and Sam out to the Impala, as I now know it to be called. The trunk has a couple of rune-like drawings on the top of it.

Dean pulls open the trunk, opens the lid of a box, and props it open with a shotgun. Inside is the biggest collection of weapons I've ever seen outside of a movie. There are knives of every metal, stakes with the tips soaked in blood, guns of all types, jars of materials I can't name, and a couple of sharp-looking things that I can't even imagine the purpose for.

I'm a little overwhelmed. I want to learn something about any of this, but nothing looks familiar… I notice a stack of throwing knives and point at them. "Teach me how to throw those. Please."

This time Sam splashes me with holy water.

"Hey! I'm just curious!" I say indignantly.

The two of them just laugh.

* * *

After our ten-hour wait is over, I've learned how to throw knives decently well, memorized an exorcism spell, and read every single thing in the leather journal Dean lent me. It's their father's journal; his name was John Winchester. They are those brothers the Ghostfacers called douche bags multiple times. In addition, Sam's given me a charm to keep away demon possession, just in case. The two of them have enemies, he told me, who would possess me an instant to get to them.

"Let's go," Dean finally says, a little bit before midnight.

We leave the Impala parked a couple of blocks away and walk the rest of the way to Mrs. Jones's office.

With the use of lock picks, we manage to make it to the second-story office without issue. I stand there with a flashlight while the brothers work on finding that bit of remains. That's all they'll let me do, really.

"Got it!" Sam finally says. He holds up a lock of hair to a lighter flame and we all watch as the hair slowly crisps and floats away.

"That's it?" I ask after a moment.

"That's it," Dean says. "What, were you expecting fireworks or something?"

I glare at him. "Something a little more… I don't know, existent?"

"Well, that's it," Sam says. "Let's go."

The brothers wipe their fingerprints off everything and we leave. When we're at the car, there's a pause. Will I be going with them, or not?

"Have you thought about it?" I ask.

Sam hesitates. He looks at me a little sheepishly before responding, "No. You can't come with us. I can't be a part of bringing someone into this life."

"Don't you understand?" I ask, my heart sinking. "I _want_ to be part of this life!"

"I don't know what you want," Sam says coldly, "except that this is not it."

"I'll find a way to be part of it even if you don't help me." I stare him down challengingly.

Sam hesitates, unsure of what to say.

I look at Dean. Maybe he would let me come.

He shrugs. "She's her own woman, Sam, she can do what she wants." He looks at me. "But me and Sam fly best solo."

"Like I said before, Dean, just take me to another hunter who I can, I don't know, _apprentice_ with."

"Okay, I have an idea," Sam says. "We'll take you with us on one—only _one_—job, and once you see you don't like it, then you can come back here."

"And if I do like it?"

"We'll find another hunter you can work with. But that won't happen."

"Sounds fair."

"Sam," Dean says. "Are you sure—"

"No. But it's better if we're with her than if she's on her own."

"Fine." He points to me. "But you have to pay for the food."


	5. The Witches

_Disclaimer: This chapter is partially based off the episode Malleus Maleficarum, 3.09._

* * *

And so it comes to be, one week later, that we are in a small town several hundred miles away. I've told the professor I'm working for that I have some urgent family business to take care of and I'm not sure when I'll be back.

Exactly what we're hunting is still a mystery, but we do know that there have been two strange deaths here: a man who apparently caught his scarf on something and was strangled to death, and a woman who was found with shredded insides because of the razors found in her stomach, but no evidence as to how they got there.

Both unlikely enough stories to cause the three of us to investigate.

The brothers make me promise to stay back and do research online and in books in my motel room (separate from theirs) while they go gather information about the victims. They don't trust me not to mess things up again, after the problems I caused with Mrs. Jones.

Mostly my "research" involves just reading books cover to cover. There's not really a lot to go on, so I decide to familiarize myself with everything. Just in case.

When Sam and Dean come back a few hours later with a bag of food, I'm just finishing skimming through a book about satanic worshippers and witches (the two are actually surprisingly similar).

"Find anything?" I ask them curiously, grabbing a cheeseburger out of the bag and starting to eat. After a week with the two of them, I feel comfortable enough around them to make myself at home.

"Not really," Sam says, sitting down next to me and starting to pour dressing on his salad.

"All I've been reading about this morning is witches. They sound… unpleasant."

"Witches," Dean says.

"Witches. What about them?"

"Witches," Sam says.

I stare at them. "What?"

"Why didn't we think of that before?" Sam says.

"Let's see, the razors inexplicably showing up in that woman's stomach, the man somehow strangling himself with his scarf… sounds like witchcraft to me," Dean says.

"But… But they're usually accompanied by demons," I say slowly. From what I've read, demons are powerful and horrible and worse than ghosts or shape shifters or anything else from earth.

"Yep." Sam runs a hand through his hair. "Good thing we have the Colt _and_ the knife."

"The what and the what? You still haven't told me what they are."

"They both kill demons. Not just exorcise, but, you know, _kill_," Dean tells me. I've read enough about them to know that you can't just kill a demon with any old knife or gun. In fact, I thought they couldn't be killed at all. "Kills them for good."

"Woah." I raise an eyebrow. "How did you get them? Did you make them yourselves?"

"It's a long story," Sam says, and the two of them leave it at that. Their tense postures make it clear they don't want to talk about it. I doubt I'm going to get them to say anything else about it. But still! Demon-killing weapons. Always a nice start to taking on a coven of witches.

"We're going to have to watch out for hex bags, then," I say, to break the awkward silence.

Dean grimaces. "Ugh. Witches and their stupid hex bags."

"And then we have to find out who the witches are, and then we can kill them, and then the demon, and then we're good, right?" I finish.

"Well," Sam says. "Not quite. Witches, in our experience, sometimes don't know what they're doing. They're just people trying to use magic when they don't understand it. It's usually just the demon making them do the really harmful things."

"Oh. So we find the witches, kill the demon, and _then_ we're good?"

Dean shrugs. "Pretty much."

"Great."

"Any ideas on what, or who, might be connecting the victims?" Sam asks.

I open my laptop and look both of them up on Facebook to look for shared friends.

A few clicks later and I've pulled up the mutual friend page for the two victims. "Let's see… there's three of them." I turn the computer towards Sam and Dean. "Vicki Rogers, Dillon McField, and Allie Johnson."

I look at the relationships they all have with the victims. "Uh, Vicki was the neighbor of one of them, and…" I scroll down a little bit more on the man's page. "Oh. The guy was her ex-boyfriend from five years ago. She's married now, though. Aw… just had a stillborn child. Poor woman."

"That seems enough to look into her," Sam says, at the same time Dean says, "She's friends with her _ex?_"

"Facebook friends," I correct Dean. "There's a difference. And yes, you should look into her."

"Okay, you stay here, we'll go talk to her." He sets a pile of throwing knives next to me, as well as two guns and something that resembles a machete. "Just in case," he says with a smile.

"I'll just keep an eye out in case anyone tries to drop some hex bags off, then," I say with a sigh. And then they're gone and out the door.

* * *

"It's definitely her," Sam says almost immediately upon reentering the motel room, after giving me a quick smile. It's about ten at night and I've been dozing off, using my arms as a pillow on the table.

"What?" I ask groggily.

"Have you been sleeping?" Sam asks.

"It's been ten hours! Where were you, anyway?"

"Just doing some reconnaissance," Dean says with a mischievous grin. "What were you up to?"

"Reading about witches. For about three hours. And then about demons. And then I drank one of the beers in the fridge because I was bored. And then…"

"That's great, Katie," Dean says without interest, patting me on the shoulder as he passes.

"So Vicki's the witch?" I ask, standing up and stretching.

"She came home with a helluva lot of candles," Dean says.

"And she drew the curtains pretty early," Sam adds.

"And we talked to her about it. She got really secretive really fast and then a couple of her friends came to help her."

"We've seen that before. Definitely a coven."

"There's gotta be a hex bag in the Impala right now."

"All riiiiight," I say, putting my hands on my hips. "Now do I get to come with you to invade this house?"

"No," both of them say at the same time.

I drop my hands and make a sound of disgust. "Come on! How do I know if I want to do this if you don't let me do _anything?_"

"You're doing research," Dean points out.

"I don't want to do research. I want to help you," I say shortly.

"Katherine, you might get hurt." Sam has a sincere worried look on my face.

"Jesus," I say exasperatedly. I hold up my bandaged wrists. "We've been over this."

"That was a ghost. We're talking about _demons_."

"You're going to need all the help you can get." I cross my arms and stare at him challengingly.

"Hey, if she wants to be suicidal, I don't see why she can't be," Dean says.

"Listen to your brother," I say, with raised eyebrows, though 'suicidal' isn't exactly the word I would use to describe myself coming to fight witches and possibly a demon with them.

Sam makes an irritated noise.

"Come _on_, Sam, I've memorized the words for an exorcism _and_ most of a demon-trapping circle! Just give me a chance. And if I get hurt, it's not your fault. I'll tell you that upfront so you won't even consider blaming yourself."

"Katherine…"

I cross my arms and stare at the two of them stubbornly.

Finally Sam gives in, though he doesn't look happy about it. "Fine."

* * *

"You. What do you want?" the woman at the door asks. She looks slightly panicked, the door open just a crack so that we can see one eye peeking out. From what I can see, her brown hair is styled in a pixie cut and she has a round face. She'd almost be cute, if I didn't know she was a witch.

"We have some more questions," Sam says.

"No. Go away." She starts to shut the door, but Dean shoves it open before she can get the chance. Sam and I follow him into the house.

"Why are you killing those people?" Dean asks menacingly.

Vicki's frightened, backing away from us all slowly. "I– I don't know what you mean…"

"Vicki?" a voice calls from another room. We hear footsteps and then a blond woman enters the room. "Oh. It's them. How about you leave her alone, okay?"

"How about you stop killing people?" I ask sarcastically, but Sam shushes me.

Vicki seems close to tears.

"And what, exactly, causes you to make that accusation?" the blond woman asks angrily.

"Well, maybe your little ritual set up in the next room," Sam says coolly, indicating the flickering light shining through the doorway. What he said was more of a guess than anything, but it seems likely.

"You're crazy," the blond woman says.

"Let's see about that." He shoves past her and glances into the room. I trail behind him, and it is, indeed, some type of satanic ritual. There's a black-haired woman sitting on the floor in front of the table with the ritual (candles, cloth painted with runes, bones, etc.), and she stands up when she sees Sam and me in the doorway.

"I just wanted to bring my baby back," Vicki whimpers. "I didn't think… I didn't think we would ever go this far…"

My heart goes out for the woman. Or, it would have, if she hadn't already killed two people. But losing a child… that's gotta be rough.

"What's going on?" the black-haired woman says, sauntering slowly across the room towards us. Sam pulls out the Colt and holds it up to her head.

She smiles, and her eyes turn black, all of them, even the whites. "Little Sammy Winchester. I dare you. Pull the trigger. End this woman's life."

I wonder how she knows Sam's name. And then I remember what Dean had said: _We have enemies._

"Abby?" Vicki says unsurely.

"You summoned a demon, didn't you, sweetheart? That's what that third death was for," Abby, or at least the demon inside her, says. "Well, here you go. Me."

Vicki and even her blond friend look horrified. So do Sam and Dean. I know what they're thinking: _third death?_ They must have just killed someone right before we arrived. We were too late to stop that.

But not to late to stop the demon. I start murmuring the exorcism spell under my breath. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…"

Suddenly I'm flung against the wall. Pain hits me and I pause on my hands and knees on the floor, trying to catch my breath.

"Katie!" Sam yells.

"You little bitch," the demon snarls.

Then I hear another voice chanting. Dean. "Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio—"

The demon throws him, too, and he doesn't get to finish.

"Infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis—" It's Sam. The demon turns to face him but I've started again.

"Congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo, draco maledicte."

The demon starts screaming, holding her head in her hands. "No! Stop!"

"Ecclesium tuam securi tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos," all three of us chant at the same time. Abby's mouth opens and she screams. Black smoke starts pouring out, rushing away. Once it's all gone, Abby collapses. Sam rushes to her side.

Vicki and her friend are standing shocked in the corner. I stand up slowly and brush myself off. There's a small dent in the wall where I hit, but when I look at where Dean was thrown, against a picture frame that shattered and sprinkled glass all over him, I decide I wasn't so bad off.

I walk over to the two witches. "Hey. I'm sorry about your baby."

Vicki doesn't quite know what to say, so she just stands there tearfully staring into space.

Dean goes and finds the book that they were using to kill people and summon the demon, and he burns it.

"You killed three people," he tells the two women after he comes back. "I don't know if that's forgivable."

"It's not," Vicki says, her voice quivering.

"Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you both now." He starts to take out a gun.

"Because, like you guys said, they didn't know what they were dealing with," I say, taking the gun out of his hand.

Vicki's blond friend sobs.

"We should go," Sam says from the floor next to Abby.

"Let's," I say.

Dean gives a warning look to the two women who are still conscious. "If we ever hear any trouble from you again, we will find you, and we will kill you. No warning next time."

The two of them nod silently.

"Take care of your friend," Dean adds, and then we're gone.


	6. Bobby

"That was awesome," I say, once I'm settled in the backseat of the Impala.

Dean glances at me in the rearview mirror. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"A lot, actually. I've been looking at myself from a psychological standpoint and I think I might be clinically insane, to a degree. Maybe I should check myself into a mental hospital," I tell them cheerfully.

"What, so you're your own shrink now?" Dean asks.

"Pretty much."

"Even so, you should avoid mental hospitals. We found a wraith at one, once. She was sucking brain juice from patients," Sam says.

"That was a nasty case," Dean mutters.

"Sounds like it." There's a moment of silence. "So where are we going now?"

"Back to Cambridge," Sam says hesitantly. "We're dropping you off at Harvard."

"What? No!"

"Our deal was _one_ case."

"Our deal was you would take me to a hunter so I could learn the craft if I decided I wanted to!"

"But—"

"Why do we have to go over everything we decide twice? We've been over this before. Get over it. Take me to a hunter."

"Let's take her to Bobby," Dean says. "We can figure out what to do from there."

Sam frowns. While brief, my argument is stronger than his; he knows he's being unfair. "Fine."

"Who's Bobby?" I ask, leaning forward between the two front seats.

"He's kind of like our adoptive father," Sam says. "A hunter."

"Oh. Okay." I lean back. Good. We are going to a hunter. "I'm gonna take a nap. And I swear to god, if I wake up on the side of the road somewhere, I will find you, and I will kill you both."

Dean glances back with a bemused look. "I'd like to see you try. But still. I promise we won't leave you on the side of a road somewhere."

"You're not exactly great at keeping promises, in my experience," I say grumpily, before rolling up my jacket to use as a pillow, leaning against the window, and falling asleep. It's not hard to drift away. It's been a long day.

* * *

A few hours later, I'm woken up by someone shaking my shoulder. "Katherine," Sam says gently. "Wake up."

"Ugh." I open my eyes slowly and look into Sam's face. He looks off guard in comparison to how he usually is, his expression gentle with hints of sorrow in his eyes. I get out of the car, looking around as I stretch. We're in some type of car lot, with ancient-looking vehicles surrounding the shining black Impala. "Is this Bobby's place?"

"Yep. C'mon, I'll introduce you to him."

It's early morning, just after dawn. I walk with Sam towards a house. "Where are we?"

"South Dakota."

"South Dakota? Isn't that… kind of in the middle of nowhere?"

He shrugs. "Yeah. But it's home."

We walk in silence the rest of the way to the house. The place looks old, like most of the cars in the lot outside. Even when we walk in the front door, it looks dusty with everything worn out. There are bookshelves packed full and piles of books stacked four feet high all over the place.

A man wearing a worn-out baseball cap with a graying beard is sitting in a wheelchair, with Dean standing next to him.

"So, Katherine, huh?" he says in a gruff voice.

I clear my throat. "Um, yeah."

"Dean says you _want_ to become a hunter."

I nod slowly.

He turns to Dean. "What is wrong with this girl?"

Dean looks at Bobby sympathetically. "I've been asking myself that since we first met her."

"Listen, here, ya idiot," he says, leaning forward in his chair. The way he says 'idiot' sounds like 'idjit.' "You don't want to be a hunter. This ain't any life for a nice girl like you to be living."

"I know, that's what Sam and Dean have said but I've made up my mind. I'm certain."

"There's no backing out."

"I know."

He looks a little bit pissed off and frankly very scary. He clearly has a lot of authority with the brothers, and that's saying a lot. I try not to tremble too much.

Bobby leans back, looking annoyed. "Well, don't say we didn't warn ya."

I'm not quite sure what to say to that, so I just settle with "Um."

"We've gotta find you a hunter to train you then, don't we?"

I nod.

"I know a few. How about you go get some food and rest and I'll call up some of these friends, ask some favors?"

"Okay."

"Bobby, could we have a word?" Sam asks as I'm walking towards the kitchen, but they're out of earshot by the time I pass through the door. I consider eavesdropping but figure I'll find out soon enough anyway, so I forget about it, especially with my stomach grumbling like it is.

I'm not familiar with the house but since I've never had a very consistent home, I'm used to the feeling, so I just help myself to whatever I can find.

Dean walks in five minutes later and plops down in one of the chairs at the table. "I see you've made yourself at home."

I smile, in the process of bringing my peanut butter and jelly sandwich to my mouth for another bite.

"We talked with Bobby, he's not going to call his hunter buddies."

I slam my fist on the table and drop my sandwich back onto its plate, furious at this further betrayal, and I would have shouted had my mouth not been full of peanut butter. I swallow and then say, "But you said… You _promised_…"

He interrupts me. "Katherine, we want you to hunt with us."

I'm a little bit shocked. The two of them seemed so eager to get rid of me before. And now _they're_ willing to train me?

"What changed your mind?" I ask suspiciously.

"Oh, a few things," he says vaguely. "It's been nice to have someone pay for our meals."

I punch him in the shoulder and he grins at me. Sam walks in then and sits down next to Dean, dropping a small stack of newspapers on the table. I smile at him gratefully.

"Thanks for letting me come with you," I say.

He flashes me a half-smile. "No problem. But we've got to find our next job." He passes me four or five papers. "Bobby had these around, they're from the last couple of days. Check them for anything strange."

He passes a few to Dean and then picks one up himself. I glance over the first page of one of them. Nothing particularly interesting. Mostly just insignificant local news from a town about fifty miles from where we are now.

I'm on page five and finding nothing significant, about to flip the page, when Dean stops me. "That one," he says, pointing to a headline so small that I've skipped over it.

_Woman claims she "didn't mean to" stab her husband to death._

I raise my eyebrows. "How do things like this even happen?"

Dean stares at me. "Really? You're going to ask that? With us?"

I grin sheepishly.

"Give me that," Dean says, grabbing the paper from me. Sam stops flipping through his paper and watches his brother. "Here," Dean finally says after a few seconds, flipping around the newspaper and pointing to another small article. "_Bar brawl ends with one dead, two hospitalized."_

He thinks about for something for a moment, and then flips back to the front page. "And the main headline. This guy just walked into the town square with a shotgun and started shooting."

"Sounds like demon possession," Sam notes.

"I'd agree, but it says here the police shot him, and he stayed dead. No reports of black smoke or anything."

"Huh." Sam glances at the ceiling, pondering on what it could be.

"But still, this couldn't be natural. There's only two thousand people in this town, weird stuff like this doesn't happen all bunched up with so few people."

"It could be just a chance occurrence," I say, still a little skeptical.

Dean shakes his head slowly at me.

"We've gone a lot farther for a lot less," Sam tells me. "So we're going."

I sigh. "I just hope you know what you're doing."

"Of course we do. We've been doing this our whole lives," Dean says.


	7. First day on the job

We pull into the town of the job three hours later. The Winchester brothers waste no time when it comes to their job. At the motel, I get my own room again and we meet back at the Impala after five minutes of unpacking.

I'm surprised to see the Winchesters dressed in suits and ties and feel a little underdressed. Oh well.

"You guys look good," I say slyly. Sam cracks a smile and Dean just rolls his eyes. "So where are we going?" I ask, opening the door to the car.

Dean closes it before it's fully open. "You're not going anywhere. We're going to go talk to the vics, see if they can give us any information. You should stay here. Do some more research or something."

My face must evidently fall, because both of them look a little bit guilty as Dean explains, "We're going as the FBI and… well, you don't have the badge yet."

I cross my arms. "When do I get the badge?"

"I promise we'll get it right after this hunt," Sam tells me.

After a moment of staring long and hard at him, I determine that he's telling the truth. "Okay. So who are you going to talk to now?"

"Well," Dean says. "We're going to the prison first to talk to the police and that woman who stabbed her husband. And then to the bar to talk to the owner to see if he noticed anything weird."

"Good luck." I sigh. "Right. So, I'll just… do some more research then, I guess, while you're gone."

"Stop moping," Dean says unsympathetically. "At least you have someone to work with at all."

Then I'm alone, again, in the motel room. I don't really have much to do but I try to conduct an investigation like the Winchesters told me to.

I go down the street to a gas station and pick up a map, which I then mark with the locations of all of the events correlated to the supposed supernatural happenings.

I search through the local newspaper and find nothing.

I read some more about possession, by ghosts and demons. It doesn't provide much extra insight.

Fortunately, the ancient books and descriptive websites are slow reads so I don't finish until just before the brothers get back, three or four hours later.

My boredom vanishes in a flash as the door opens and they walk in. "What did you find out?" I ask excitedly.

"There's definitely something fishy about it all," Dean says, taking off his jacket and tossing it on one of the beds. "The police said the man who shot up the park was a recluse. The woman who stabbed her husband claims they got into a heated argument and she couldn't hold back from stabbing him, even though she regrets it now."

"And get this," Sam cuts in. "She says a guy had shown up at her door a couple hours earlier claiming to be a neighbor and suggested that her husband was cheating. And when we talked to the guy at the bar, he said there was this sketchy guy who talked to a group of friends and got them arguing, and then things just escalated from there."

"So, a single guy. Your thoughts are it's a…?" I trail off.

"Not a demon, to start, like I suspected," Dean says.

"Okay."

"Maybe something that causes violence or death?" Sam says thoughtfully. "That seems to be the only thing they have in common. I mean, none of the vics had a common enemy or anything."

"Let's do some research then," Dean suggests.

I groan. I'd just finished three hours of research. Still, I go back online and start flipping through the sites that the brothers commonly went to so I could look for information. Sam's got his laptop out, too, and Dean's flipping through an old book.

After a few minutes, I announce, "I found a list of war deities."

"Great," Sam says. "Which one do you think we're dealing with?"

"It's hard to tell," I say, squinting at the screen of my computer. "There's about two hundred of them from thirty civilizations."

And so the search for our suspect continues.

"There has to be something we're missing," Sam says, rubbing his eyes after an hour more of attempted research. "Our search is too vague."

"One minute," I say, opening a new tab and finding the online version of the local newspaper. "I have the newspaper open on my computer."

"Read all the headlines," Dean instructs.

I read them all, one at a time. Mostly it's insignificant things, like obituaries or the economy.

"Wait, read that one again," Dean says as I'm reading through them.

"_Animal shelter faces overwhelming number of stray dogs_?" I ask.

"Yeah." He takes the paper and skims through it. "Looks like dogs are flocking to this town," he tells us.

"So now we know it's a single guy, who creates violence and death, with a tendency to attract dogs," I say. "Great."

I keep on with my search of war gods, I add "dogs" to my search.

"Here," I say, seeing the first entry. "Ares. 'Ares is the God of war, violence, and bloodshed.'"

"That sounds about right," Dean says. "Does it say how to kill him?"

I flip through a few more pages and try to find it. "No. It seems because he's immortal."

"I'll call Bobby," Dean says, pulling out his phone and flipping it open. He dials a number and wanders to the other side of the room so he can talk to Bobby without being interrupted.

Sam and I watch him for a couple of minutes and then he hangs up and comes back. "He said he'll look into it."

"Great," I say. "Now what do we do?"

"Find this god's location, I guess," Sam says with a shrug.

"Guys," I say. "I am so worn out. I have been reading books for _hours_. Can we do this tomorrow?"

"People are dying, Katie," Dean says.

"Based on the past events, the next attack will be in…" I calculate it my head for a few seconds. "Two days. Enough time for us to take a break, right?"

Dean folds his arms in front of him, looking unimpressed. "Okay, so what do you want to do?"

Now that I think about it, there's nothing I can think of. I just wanted to be finished with reading about demons and monsters and gods. "Um, sleep?" I suggest.

"Sleep?" he asks incredulously. "I've heard there's a nice bar down the street, let's go there."

"I don't drink," I say out of habit. It's something I say whenever I'm invited to anything, mostly because I just don't want to go out.

"What? Why?" Dean looks doubtful.

I shrug. "I've never really been the type of person who's into that type of thing."

"Well, we are going to get you drunk tonight," Dean says, standing up and stretching. "You can't hunt like a pro unless you're hung over."

"Ugh. Fine." I don't really have any intention of getting drunk but I don't see the harm in getting a couple of drinks. "Let me go put on pants." I'm wearing sweatpants and I'm pretty sure that's not exactly the best type of clothing on a social outing. I go back to my room and find my best outfit, which isn't actually that nice. A pair of skinny jeans, boots, and a tank dress. At least it's a change from my usual jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers. I even go to the trouble of putting on some eye shadow and liner and a little lipstick.

I meet the brothers at the car.

"You look nice," Sam says, raising his eyebrows.

"Shuddup," I grumble, blushing. I'm not comfortable feeling so unlike myself.

It's a quick five-minute walk down the street to the bar and I start to lose my self-consciousness as we walk down there. Sam keeps glancing at me until I point it out and then he stops.

Then we reach the bar, and we're seated within five minutes.

"This sucks," I complain, glaring at the beer bottle I have in my hands. I haven't even taken a sip yet, though the brothers are most of the way done with their drinks. The bar is just what I would expect, dirty and dim and reeking of alcohol. There's a few occupied pool tables and dartboards and the overall effect is giving me a headache.

"Drink your damn beer," Dean says, taking a glug of his own.

I gingerly take a sip and wince at the bitter taste. "Gross."

Sam shrugs. "You get used to it."

"I can't believe you're twenty-three and you _still_ don't drink." Dean rolls his eyes at me.

"The things you don't know about me would surprise you."

"Like what?"

I lean back at little and shake my head. "There's a reason you don't know." There's not actually a lot. Only a few things. I just like to seem mysterious, especially around these who guys who are a lot more mysterious than I am.

Dean looks at me dubiously for a second before taking another sip of his beer. "Well, you can stew here with your secrets, but I'm going to go gather some intel on our case from the local population."

He winks at Sam and I, stands up, and walks over to a blond across the bar who's sitting alone.

"He's not gathering intel, is he," I ask, without the inflection usually accompanying a question.

"Nope," Sam says, draining the last drops from his bottle.

"Please tell me you're not going to leave me, too. I'm not really the type of girl to talk with these types of guys. In fact I'm not really the type of girl to talk with any guys. You know, I haven't even been on a date since I was twenty."

Sam turns and looks at me with an incredulous expression. "What? Three years ago?"

I smile awkwardly. I've never had anyone to tell that piece of information to before. "I know."

"Wow. Um. I think you should go on at least one more date before you die a horrible death at the hands of some creature… do you want to go out for a movie? Right now?"

"Are you asking me out?" I ask, a grin lighting up my face. I hadn't looked at Sam before like that, but now that he suggests it, I feel butterflies in my stomach.

"I guess you could say that." Sam smiles back.

"Let's go then," I say, picking up my bag and pushing my beer away. I'd only drank a few sips of it but I didn't really care.

"I think we should go see that new horror movie," I suggest as we're walking out the door. I glance back to see Dean still absorbed in talking with the blond.

"Real life's not enough for you?" Sam asks, holding the door open for me.

"It's because I know now that ghosts _are_ real that I want to see it. I bet those movies are hilarious for you guys to watch."

"You have no idea."

"So if this is a date, does that mean I get to hold your hand?" I ask.

"If you want to."

"It's not a real date if I don't." I slip my hand into his. It's warm and rough and callused from all his years in his line of work.

We walk to the theater, which is easy to find because of the enormous glow it's giving off, because it's only a few minutes a way by foot.

"That one," I say, pointing at a sign when we walk into the theater. It's a poster for _Horrors from Hell._

Sam rolls his eyes. "If you insist."

The movie is just as terrible as I thought it would be. Sam whispers in my ear every once in a while, giving commentary on what's realistic and what's not: "Ghosts can't be harmed by silver. I don't even know where that came from…" or "I'm pretty sure demons don't look like that. Claws and pointy teeth? Seriously?"

Every time he says something like that I can't help but laugh a little, and I'm pretty sure the three terrified teenagers in front of us are really annoyed. They keep glancing back angrily every time I try really hard not to burst out laughing.

After the movie, we walk back to the motel, holding hands again.

"Is it… going to be like this, after tonight?" Sam says.

I ponder his question. I hadn't really thought about it all night. "What do you think?"

He shrugs. "I want to hear your opinion."

It requires a little more thought. "I… I really liked tonight. But we have a job, things might get complicated…"

I pause to gather my thoughts for a second, and then Sam's disappointed look sends me over the edge. "But I guess it would be okay. We might have to take it slow, though. Like, snail slow. Just so we can, you know, concentrate on the task at hand."

"Sounds good to me." Sam smiles.

We're across the parking lot from our motel rooms now, just walking holding hands. Then I freeze. Sam pauses next to me, looking concerned. I say, "I just realized… does… does Dean ever bring girls back to your motel?"

"Not usually, no," Sam says, looking amused.

I let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God. I'd hate to walk in to see some poor girl in the morning."

We've reached the motel now. My rooms one to the left of theirs, but I stand with my hands in Sam's, just in front of my door.

"This is the part where you kiss me," I say, staring up into his green eyes.

Sam puts a hand on my cheek and leans in. I close my eyes as our lips meet. There's gentleness in the kiss, like Sam's afraid I might break… but I can tell there's also passion in Sam's kiss, not just lust, but passion, and I know then that kisses like this are something rare for him, meant for someone special. It makes me feel on top of the world, to be one of those people who he's willing to share that moment with.

He pulls away and looks into my eyes. I can hardly see him in the dark, just a vague impression of his features and the glow of a neon sign shining off his eyes.

"I couldn't let you go," he says softly, leaning his forehead against mine.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"That's why you're working with us, not another hunter. I couldn't bear the thought of you hunting with someone else. I wanted you with me."

My heart flutters. I had no idea the true reason why I was still working with them, especially when Sam had been the one so keen on the idea to get rid of me. But then things click into place. It wasn't that he wanted to get rid of me, and more that he wanted me to be safe. I can't believe it took me this long to just get that.

I kiss him again.

"Goodnight, Sam," I say, my face close to his.

"Goodnight, Katherine." Slowly, he and I walk to our separate doors, three feet apart, and open them. With one last glance at Sam, I step inside my room.


	8. How to kill a god

I'm up early, back to my normal t-shirt and jeans and make-up-less face after my unusual appearance last night. Just before I head out, I tuck the gun that the Winchesters gave me into the back of my belt, where it's covered by the flannel shirt I put on over my t-shirt.

I knock on the brothers' motel room door, but then I hear a throat clear behind me. "You sure slept in late," Dean notes, leaning against the hood of the Impala. Sam's standing next to him. They're both in suits again and my heart drops. It means I'm going to have to stay back again.

"It's eight in the morning," I say defensively. Eight seems like a reasonable time to be ready by, right?

"Whatever. Let's get going."

"Me, too?" I ask warily, wondering if they forgot I don't have an FBI badge.

Sam pulls something out of his pocket and hands it to me. "You too. Bobby sent this."

It looks a little like a black wallet, but I know what it really is. On the inside, there's an FBI badge and ID. My college picture is on one side (the fact that they somehow had access to it freaks me out a little bit), and a fake name on the other. "Patricia Smith? Where'd you come up with that?"

Dean smiles proudly. "My idea. She's a musician."

"What are your guys' names?" I ask, unimpressed.

"Ted Nugent and Robert Marley."

I raise my eyebrows. "Seriously?"

"Let's just go," Sam says, rolling his eyes.

"Wait... I don't have any formal clothes," I say slowly, worried they'll leave me behind again.

"We can stop off at a store on the way."

That makes me wonder… "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Well, contrary to your belief, there was actually another incident last night," Dean says.

"What?" It feels like my heart stops. If someone else died when I'd suggested taking a break from the job…

"Nobody died," Sam tells me quickly when he sees the look on my face. "Just a fight. It got broken up pretty quickly. We're just going to talk to the people involved."

"Oh," I say faintly, relief rushing through me. Sam smiles at me, glad to see me looking less worried.

I change the subject once we're all in the car. "Did you have fun last night with that blond?" I ask Dean teasingly as the car pulls out of the parking lot.

"That blond? You mean _those _blonds. There were three. Man, I'm gonna be sore for a week."

"Three? What—how—?"

"It's best not to ask," Sam interrupts.

"What about you?" Dean asks. "You don't seem as hungover as you should be."

"Sam and I left before you did."

"We went to see _Horrors from Hell_. Not worth the ten dollars per ticket, if you ask me," Sam says, glancing at Dean. "But still. Did you know Kate's last date before last night was three years ago?"

"You made last night a date?"

"Yeah," Sam says. "Why?"

Dean shoots him a look and there's a tacit exchange between the two of them. Sam tilts his head a little bit and raises his eyebrows like people do when they want to make a point and after a few seconds Dean finally shrugs and turns on the radio. We listen to Led Zeppelin in silence for the rest of the ride. I wonder what that was about.

We stop at the store really quick to buy the clothes (a pant suit with a collared shirt underneath), Sam and I going in together and Dean going out to get we get back to the car, Dean hands both of us breakfast burritos.

"Now we're going to talk to the guys who got in the fight, right?" I say, taking a bite out of my burrito. I wrinkle my nose. Tomatoes. I hate tomatoes. I gingerly pick the little diced pieces of tomato out of the burrito and put them on a napkin.

"Yes," Dean answers watching my pickiness in the rearview mirror with amusement. "Katherine, just eat your damn burrito."

I glare at him and continue to pick out the bits of tomato, just to spite him.

It takes about five minutes to get to the house of one of the guys in the fight, the guy who supposedly started it. I finish the last bite of my burrito and crumple up the wrapping.

We all get out of the car, and I feel pretty bad-ass. I'm dressed for the part, with my FBI badge in my pocket, a gun tucked into my belt, and two men in suits walking by my side.

Dean rings the doorbell and then steps back. A few moments later, we hear someone padding towards the door and it opens. It's a woman, mid-aged, dressed in workout clothes.

"Hello," she says. "Can I help you?"

"Uh, yeah, we're with the FBI. Agents Nugent, Marley, and Smith," Dean tells her, and the three of us flash our badges. "We need to talk with your husband about the incident he was involved in last night."

"Oh yeah, of course," she says, sounding flustered. "Come in. You can have a seat in there—" she indicates the living room just to the left of the entrance "—and I'll go get my husband." She rushes up the stairs as we walk into the living room and settle down on the couch there.

The woman and a man walk down the stairs together, and the man comes into the living room. We stand up when he walks in. He doesn't seem like the type of guy get into fist-fights. His hair is well-groomed, and he's wearing a white collared shirt with a tie. Still, it's evident something happened because he has a black and swollen eye, and a few cuts on his face. Purple bruising covers most of the left half of his face.

"Hi, I'm John Wilson," he says, shaking each of our hands in a friendly way, even though worry is written all over his face. "My wife says you're from the FBI."

He goes and sits down in a chair across from us and the three of us reseat ourselves as well.

"Yes, about the incident you were involved in last night," Dean says.

John looks confused. "I've already received a fine."

"No, it's not about that. Don't worry, you're not in trouble," Sam says reassuringly. Mr. Wilson seems unconvinced, but Sam continues, "We're looking for someone else you may have seen. It's important that we know how the fight began. Were you provoked?"

John seems eager to help, now that he knows he's not facing serious charges from the federal government. "I was at a restaurant with my buddy, and then this guy walked up to us. He… he told me my friend had been sleeping with my wife. And I just got… I just got so _angry_, I just attacked my friend right there…" He shakes his head. "I have no idea what got into me. I didn't even know that man who talked to me, and I didn't even question him."

Sam, Dean, and I all glance at each other. Definitely seems like our guy.

"Could you tell us the location of the restaurant where you saw this man?" Sam asks, clicking the end of his pen.

Mr. Wilson gives him the address and Sam jots it down on a pad of paper he has.

"What did he look like?" Dean says.

"He had sunglasses on, even though it was night. I think he had curly black hair, olive skin. Maybe about six feet tall. Black leather jacket."

"Okay, great," Sam says, scribbling something down. I glance over at the pad of paper and see that he's been doodling for the most part, except for the address. I try not to laugh.

The brothers have a few more questions and then we're out of there.

We go back to the motel and I put a big X on the map on the restaurant where Ares made his last appearance. The brothers watch with interest as I draw a circle in red pen connecting all the locations.

"There," Dean says, pointing the center of the circle. "That's where we're going to find him."

Right then a there's a sharp and obnoxious high-pitched ringing and I jump.

Dean laughs. "Just my phone, calm down."

He answers it and wanders a bit away to talk to whoever is on the other end. I step back away from the map on the wall slip my hand into Sam's as we listen to Dean. I would put my head on his shoulder, but he's so damn tall that his shoulder is about eye-level for me, so I just kind of lean against him instead.

"Bobby?" Dean is saying. He pauses for a minute or two to listen to the other end of the line. "Great. Okay. Thanks." He hangs up and walks back to me and Sam.

"Bobby says the only things that can kill Ares are other gods, 'a blade dipped in the River Styx' or 'a dagger dipped in the blood of Artemis's sacred golden hind,' but since we're not going to find any of those, our best bet is to temporarily banish her for a few hundred years by dipping a dagger in the blood of a female red deer. A hind, as it were."

"Really? That would work?" I ask dubiously.

Dean shrugs. "I'd prefer to get rid of her for good, but we'll just have to settle."

"Where do we find said female red deer?"

"They apparently live in Europe and Asia," Dean says. "And Argentina."

"Well, then," Sam says. "I say this calls for a field trip to the zoo."

And so it comes to be, many hours later at one in the morning, I'm sitting in the Impala outside of the town's zoo, waiting for Sam and Dean to come out of one of the side exits with some deer blood in tow.

It's not as bad as it sounds. They're just stealing a sample of blood that was taken for veterinary purposes, or so that's the plan; it's not like the two of them are just going to mercilessly stab a defenseless deer to get its blood.

After about half an hour, I see two figures walking towards the car in the darkness. I recognize the Winchesters' distinctive gaits. It's them.

They get to the car and climb in.

"Did you get it?" I ask eagerly. I wish I could've gone in too, but they were worried I would botch something up like tripping a motion detector and get us all caught, which is really the last thing any of us wants right now.

"Yep." Dean holds up a plastic vial filled with a dark substance. I know it's red but I can't see the color now because of the dim light. "Now let's go gank this son of a bitch."


	9. This means war

Ares is hiding out in the center of town on the second-story of an apartment building. We'd already scoped out the place earlier and even seen the god in question walk out of the front door, dressed in his customary leather jacket and wearing sunglasses.

A paper taped up inside the buildings front windows told us that the entire apartment building is miraculously unoccupied and available to rent, as it's a fairly new building. We won't have to worry about any neighbors being concerned about the loud noises or screams coming from the apartment next door.

We sit outside in the Impala across the street, just watching. It's late enough at night, or I guess I should say early enough in the morning, that nobody's out.

Dean orders Sam and me to get down when he spots the god leisurely strolling down the street. When Ares heads into the building, we all sit back up and stare across the street.

The light flicks on upstairs and then we're out of the car and headed over to kill ourselves a Greek god.

Dean pours the hind blood out of the vial over his knife as we walk. Sam and I are also equipped with a couple of guns and knives each, but they're not going to do much good against who we're facing. No permanent damage, anyway.

We reach the apartment building. Sam tries the door, but it's locked. He kneels down and pulls out his lock pick and in a matter of twenty seconds, the lock clicks open and we go in.

The two brothers are completely silent as we walk up the stairs; all I can hear from them is the faint rustling of their clothing as they move. I, however, am not so experienced in walking lightly, and I wince when my shoes make a conspicuous thud and slight squeak with every step I take.

Dean glares at me for a moment as we're going up, but for the most part, thankfully, the two of them don't seem to mind much.

When we reach the second story, stealth doesn't seem to be on the Winchesters' minds as much. Sam and I pull out our guns and we walk to the end of the hallway, to the door we know to be to Ares's apartment, and Sam kicks it open.

It slams against the wall of the apartment with a bang.

Ares had been looking out the window at the empty street below, but now he turns to look at us, an amused look on his face, like he's been expecting us. He probably has.

What immediately strikes me is his eyes. He's no longer wearing the sunglasses that people have described him in. Instead, his eyes are visible and quite mesmerizing, the irises flickering orange and red. I feel a shiver run down my spine.

He gives off a pugnacious vibe, like he's itching for a fight. I can't help but tense up, suddenly eager to brawl as well. His mood is contagious.

"Hello, boys," he says, sounding vaguely interested. I walk out from behind Sam and he adds, "And girl."

Without further ado, Dean charges the god.

Ares lazily slaps the knife out of Dean's hand and throws Dean ten feet into the opposite wall.

Sam is eyeing the knife's location across the room, calculating how long it will take to get there and if he has a chance to pick it up.

"Sam, isn't it?" Ares asks contemptuously, sauntering between Sam and the blade. He must be able to read minds, or else someone's told him about us. Either option sounds reasonable. "Sam. You trust big brother Dean, don't you? You really shouldn't. He's been screwing your girlfriend right under your nose. How couldn't you see that?"

It's not true, and Sam knows it, but I see the expression on his face change from determination to betrayal and anger anyway. The gun he's holding, pointed at Ares, changes direction slowly, seemingly against Sam's will, until it's aimed directly at Dean's head.

"Sammy," Dean says to his brother. "This isn't you."

"Sam," I say softly, starting to step between his gun and Dean.

Still staring straight ahead at his brother, he pulls the trigger. The bullet rips past my arm, grazing it just enough to cause a blaze of agony, but fortunately it misses Dean. I've gotta, say, I was not expecting Sam to shoot. I back up slowly, holding a hand over the gash on my upper arm. Blood's dripping out between my fingers.

"What did you do to him?" I snarl at Ares, lifting up my gun to point it at Ares head.

"Katherine," Ares says, looking at me with a malicious smile. "Were you aware that these two young men were going to leave you behind after you all killed me? Such a shame you liked them so much."

Red flashes before my eyes. Suddenly I forget about protecting Dean from Sam and Sam from himself. I'm furious. They promised they wouldn't leave me behind, they promised I'd get to travel with them… and after everything I'd been through with Sam, everything he said last night…

I drop my gun, craving more direct retaliation against the brothers' lying. Sam's closest, standing right next to me, and I punch him in the face as hard as I can before he can even turn away from Dean. His gun drops and clatters out of his hand, and I pull my fist back, ready to punch again. I can feel more blood trickling onto my already sticky fingers from where the knuckles split.

Before I can hit him again, Sam catches my fist in his palm. He kicks my feet out from underneath me and I hit the ground, hard. My breath's knocked out of me and pain flares in my injured arm. My vision goes black for half a second.

When my vision clears, I sit up slowly, still dazed. Sam's turned away from me and back towards his brother. He fires a shot, but Dean's already out of the way, scrambling behind Ares to pick up the knife again, so the bullet just hits the wall.

Dean's back on his feet with the knife in his hand a second later, and Sam is just about to shoot again, when Dean fluidly appears next to him and knocks the gun out of his hand. "Sorry, Sammy," Dean says, punching Sam square in the jaw and knocking him out. "It's just so hard to concentrate with you trying to kill me."

Ares is looking at Dean now. "Katherine is trying to take Sam away from you," he claims, which is not true, as a matter of fact. I know it's not. I don't want Sam orDean, the double-crossing bastards.

Dean ignores the god and I can see a flash of worry pass over Ares's face.

"Look at that, you son of a bitch," Dean growls, a grin on his face that kind of scares me. "That's not going to work on me. What are you going to do now?"

"Katherine wants to kill you," Ares says, his voice growing frantic. He begins to back up slowly.

Now that claim, that's true. I do want to kill him, even though he doesn't seem to be taking Ares seriously. I know I would never be able to win in a fist fight against him, and he's too far away anyway. So I pick up the gun on the ground, careful not to use my wounded arm, and point it at Dean. Sam's unconscious on the ground next to me, an easy target, but I'll deal with him later. He's not going anywhere.

But then Dean's too close to Ares. I don't want to kill Ares. Later, maybe. But if I get Ares out of the way now, then I won't be able to take down Dean alone, not when he's solely focused on me_. _The two of them are fighting, rapidly punching and swinging and blocking and I can barely see the red-stained blade as it flashes through the air.

Ares is really holding his own against Dean, something I wouldn't expect based on what I've heard about the hunter's remarkable fighting skills. I keep my gun up, but I still don't have any clear shots.

I get tired of watching them. I just want Dean dead and bleeding on the floor. So I take a shot, hoping to hit Dean but not caring much beyond that.

It doesn't hit him. What a disappointment. It does, however, hit Ares's leg (hey, I was getting really shaky from blood loss, of course my aim wasn't good), causing him to stumble. In the fraction of a second the god's off balance, Dean has driven the blood-covered knife into the chest of his opponent, right through the heart.

As soon as he does it, realization at what I'd been trying to do hits me. Why the hell was I trying to kill Dean? I drop the gun I'm holding in my hands and take a few steps back, away from it.

Dean lets Ares's lifeless body crumple to the floor and turns to look at me warily.

"You done trying to kill me?" he asks tiredly.

"Uh," I start. "I think so."

Sam groans from a few feet away. He opens his eyes and sits up. "What happened?" he asks, taking in the dead body across the room.

"The bastard put you and Katie under a spell," Dean informs him.

"Oh yeah…" He shakes his head to clear it. "Sorry. To both of you."

"Ditto," I say.

"You're both forgiven," Dean says.

"Hey, Dean, why weren't you affected?" I ask, remembering what Ares was saying to him.

"He wasn't affected?" Sam asks me, getting to his feet.

"No, I don't know why. Ares told him… Ares told him I wanted to take you away from him and that I wanted to kill him."

"Maybe he tells you what you're already half-expecting to hear," Dean suggests. "Or maybe what you're most worried about happening. And I just trust you both so much that it didn't work on me."

Sam's cheeks turn red uncharacteristically, as he thinks back to what Ares told him. Dean walks over to us and throws an arm over Sam's shoulders and gently places an arm over mine, careful not to bother my bad arm too much. "It's okay, Sammy. I promise I won't steal your girlfriend."

"So what do we do with the body?" I ask, as we all stare at the corpse soaking in a pool of blood in front of us. It kind of ruins the awkward yet warm and fuzzy feeling we were all experiencing a moment ago.

"Gotta go burn it," Dean says, removing his arms from over our shoulders and going to do something about the body in front of us.

Sam and I turn to each other.

"Listen, Sam, I'm sorry… I'm sorry I punched you. I really do trust you not to leave me. I mean, at this point anyway."

"I'm the one who should be apologizing, Katie," he says, glancing down at my profusely bleeding arm. "I can't believe… I can't believe I did this to you."

"It wasn't you, Sam, it was Ares."

He sighs and runs the tips of his fingers along my cheek lightly. "I want you to know… I trust you too. I'd trust you with my life."

I stand on my toes, and, pulling Sam closer with my good arm, give him a long kiss. Kind of an apology kiss, I guess you could say, for both of us.

We're snapped out of it by Dean. "Hey," he says, clapping his hands a couple of times to get our attention. "Stop with the smooching and help me clean this up."


	10. Getting patched up

"Are we gonna go to the hospital now?" I ask, as we're on our way back to the motel after taking care of the body. It's about four in the morning and I'm exhausted.

Dean looks in the rearview mirror at me, a little confused. "What?"

"To get patched up."

"We patch ourselves up," Sam tells me. "That way we don't need to explain."

"Makes sense," I say, though I secretly wish I could get professional help.

Especially twenty minutes later when Sam is the one stitching me up. He feels bad about shooting me still, even though it wasn't his fault, and takes personal responsibility for getting me fixed up.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" I ask for the umpteenth time as Sam stitches up the bad cut on my arm.

"_Yes_," he replies, again.

"Yes," Dean calls from the bathroom, where he's washing his blood-splattered face.

It's just not very reassuring when whiskey is used as both an anesthetic _and_ a disinfectant, and dental floss is used for the stitching.

I close my eyes when Sam starts threading the needle through. It hurts a little bit, but doesn't add a lot of pain to what's already there.

Sam finishes stitching me up and snips the thread. "Go get some sleep," he tells me. He walks me to the door and kisses me on the forehead before I leave. I smile at him and go to my room.

Despite being awake for a very, very long time, I can't sleep. I try brushing my teeth, taking a shower, nothing really works. My thoughts are moving too fast, my mind swirling, now that I need it to stop. The day was just so exciting, the first time I'd actually fought alongside the brothers.

I go take a walk outside, hoping to clear my head. I slowly make my way along the walkway outside the motel to the vending machine about fifteen doors down. It's still pretty early in the morning, the kind of dark that comes right before the sunrise. I see one or two people out walking, headed somewhere.

When I finally reach the glowing light of the vending machine, I'm surprised to see someone else there, given that it's so early. In the darkness, I can only see an outline. The figure is leaning against the wall, the face looking down at the ground. I frown. I'd hoped I wouldn't run into anyone, especially a stranger.

"You too, huh?" the person says, looking up at me. It's not a stranger; I recognize the voice. It's Dean.

"Why are _you_ up?" I ask.

"I could say the same to you."

"Why do you think I'm up?" I ask. "You think I could sleep after so much excitement?"

"Oh yeah," Dean says, grinning. "I forgot that was your first fight."

"What about you? Why are you awake?"

Dean smiles sadly. "I was just thinking about someone."

"Who, if you don't mind my asking?" I walk over next to him and lean against the wall.

"Just… someone that I used to know." I can tell it's someone really important to him, someone that he lost. I wonder how he lost them.

"Do you want to be alone?" I ask after a few moments.

Dean takes a deep breath. "No, that's all right. Company would be nice right now."

I stand silently next to Dean for a moment.

"How's your arm?" he asks.

"Agonizing, thanks for asking."

"It takes a little pain to become a good hunter," Dean says with an understanding grin.

I smile back at him.

There's a brief silence. I don't know if I'll have another opportunity to talk to Dean alone about this, so I ask, "Has Sam had any major girlfriends I should know about?"

Laughing softly, he says, "Of course you'd want to know. Only one. Her name was Jessica. From when Sam was at Stanford. She… she was killed."

"Oh." Awkward moments. "How?"

"Yellow-eyes."

I'd heard all about the Winchesters' past… at least, by all about, I mean the bits and pieces that weren't too painful to share, so about five or six minutes of explanations total. I'd heard the general outline of their lives up to this point, including the reason they got into hunting in the first place: the yellow-eyed demon Azazel. He'd killed their mother and given six-month-old Sam demon blood to drink that made Sam psychic later on, for a while, at least.

The ensuing hunt that took place over the next twenty years and came to its peak just a few years ago ended up with their father dead, Dean with one year to live after selling his soul to a demon, and opened gates of hell.

At least Azazel was dead. They'd eventually gotten their revenge.

Man, those Winchesters had it rough, now that I thought about it some. It strikes me suddenly that maybe it was foolish to get into hunting.

But then I think to all the good times I've had with the brothers so far, and Sam kissing me, and even the powerful feeling I got while fighting Ares. The feeling of anxiety I'd had just a moment before disappears.

"You might not want to bring Jess up around Sam," Dean suggests. "He kind of feels responsible for her death."

Of course he does. He feels responsible for everything. "How?"

"He had visions of her dying like that, burning on the ceiling, but he still went hunting with me, the first time in a long time, and when he went back…" Dean trails off. "Anyway, he started back up hunting with me pretty quickly after."

So if Sam only started hunting again after his only true girlfriend died… it makes me wonder. "Do relationships ever work out while you're hunting?" I ask, partly out of curiosity, partly out of concern for my relationship with Sam.

Dean shrugs. "Not really. I mean, the girls we meet, they wouldn't even consider hunting. Though I have seen a few married hunting couples."

That's good, right? People can make it work out.

"Usually one of them dies at some point, but until then they have each other."

I shudder. "Thanks," I say sarcastically.

Dean just grins at me.

"Any closer to being ready to sleep?" he asks after a moment.

"Nope. Not at all."

"Me neither. Do you want to try to find a job?"

I do. I go and grab my laptop from my room and then we sit on the concrete in front of the vending machine, browsing through articles of weird news.


	11. Sulfur

My exhaustion finally hits me the next day when we're all in the car, on our way to Pennsylvania for our next case. I curl up in the back seat, using Sam's jacket as a pillow. It smells like him, something that I love but would never admit to anyone.

I'm out cold for a good ten hours while we're driving, which is especially amazing because sleeping well in a car is pretty tough.

Sam gently shakes me awake when we stop for food.

"Ungh," I say groggily. I get out of the car, squinting my eyes into the bright sunlight.

"C'mon," Dean says impatiently. "I need some pie."

Dean and his pie. God.

It turns out we're at a diner in a minor town, so there is, in fact, lots of pie. Dean orders cherry pie to start but Sam and I order burgers like ordinary people.

"Dean filled me in on the case while you were asleep," Sam tells me as our food arrives.

"Good," I say, taking a bite out of my cheeseburger. It's the first food I've had since last night and it tastes _really_ good, after all that fighting and getting shot and staying up for so long.

The case that we found involved a single disappearance and few deaths near a small town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg, which again, I didn't think stood out too much, but Dean claimed was a job.

"So what do _you_ think it is?" Sam asks me, picking at the bun of his burger.

I don't want to stop eating my burger to explain my opinions, but I put it down anyways and swallow. "Demon," I tell him. "There was sulfur reported on one of the scenes." An undeniable sign of demon activity. I hadn't actually noticed that part of the article myself, Dean had pointed it out, but I wasn't about to admit that. Dean raises an eyebrow at me as he takes a bite of pie, but doesn't say anything.

"I wonder what it's doing there," Sam says.

"Could just be out to cause chaos and pain and death," I suggest, taking a sip of soda.

"Maybe, but we usually have the luck to run into demons working on orders," Dean says, shrugging his shoulders.

"Whose orders?" I ask, curious. Based on what I've read, demons don't seem like the order-taking type.

"Lucifer's, a more powerful demon's, something like that," Sam answers.

"Oh." I guess that would make sense.

"Maybe we should get you an anti-possession tattoo before we get there," Dean suggests thoughtfully. "Just in case you lose your charm."

I unconsciously bring my hand up to the amulet I'm wearing around my neck, the one that I've worn practically ever since I met the two of them.

"An anti-possession tattoo?" I ask, curious. "Why didn't you suggest that before?"

Sam shifts uncomfortably. "It suggests with some finality that you're in the life for good."

I nod understandingly, because I get it. I really do. After spending so much time with the two of them, I finally see what's so enviable about a normal, apple-pie life and why the two of them wanted me to go back to it, even up until after we'd worked the witch case together. They're never going to have that life, and they know it.

I appreciate their concern for me, but after learning about how the world _really _is, I know this has to be my life too, even if it's a short one. I can't imagine living any other way, not when I know there are people out there who need protection from monsters they don't even know exist.

Still, when we're passing through Columbia, Ohio a couple hours later, we stop at a tattoo place. Both brothers come in with me, Sam for support, and Dean so he can see the look on my face when I'm getting the tattoo.

We show the tattoo artist a picture of the anti-possession symbol, the outline of a sun with a pentagram in the center, and he sets to work on it. I get it on my chest, just over my heart, like the brothers have it.

It stings. A lot. I wince at first and then just grit my teeth. Dean snaps a picture on his phone, grinning from ear to ear, and winks at me. I flip him off in return.

Sam stands next to me, holding one of my hands and talking about politics. Dean couldn't be less interested but Sam and I like to keep tabs on what's going on in the world, outside of demon possessions and hauntings and vampire-caused massacres.

Finally, the tattoo is finished. It looks pretty good. It shows almost completely except for a little bit of the side covered by the strap of my tank-top.

* * *

Now that I'm all tatted up, we're finally ready to go face that demon in Gettysburg.

That night, we waste no time in starting to set up our research. Sam tells me to mark all the locations of the killings and the homes and work places of those who disappeared on a map we purchased after rolling into town. The locations seem to span out in a half-circle throughout the town.

I'm just in the middle of looking up what's on the coordinates of the center of that half circle when the radio tuned into the police channel crackles.

"A death has been reported at the following address," someone says, before giving an address.

"Um," I say, because Sam and Dean are across the room sharpening knives and making rock salt rounds for shotguns, and they didn't hear. "A death's been reported."

Sam puts down the knife he's holding (the demon-killing one). "Where?"

I tell them the address I heard over the radio.

"All right then," Dean says, finishing up loading the shotgun he has, then standing up. "Time to get suited up."

* * *

We arrive at the scene of the crime twenty minutes later, dressed in our suits and FBI badges in our pockets.

"FBI, agents Ford, Hamill, and Fisher," Dean tells the policeman standing outside the taped off area near an alley close to the center of town as we all flash our badges. Bobby sent a couple more IDs for me pretty quickly so that we could go under different names to avoid people getting suspicious if they found out about the correlation.

The officer nods to us and we duck under the yellow tape blocking off the area. There are a few other police officers there, taking pictures of the body for record, inspecting the area, talking to each other.

Suddenly there's a weird whirring noise coming from something in Sam's jacket. I recognize the sound; it's the EMF detector. He pulls it out. All five of the red lights on the top are all lit up. There's been ghost activity here.

"The EMF's going crazy," he notes, a puzzled expression on his face.

Dean looks up towards the sky. "Doesn't look like there's any telephone lines around. Weird. I thought we were dealing with a demon."

I glance over at the body, which is being put in a body bag currently. I'm struck with sadness to see that it's just a teenage boy, probably hardly past sixteen.

Dean clears his throat. "Anyway, I'll go check with the police to see if there's any witnesses, you two check around for sulfur."

"Sounds good," Sam says, with a quick nod.

A thorough check of the area reveals nothing. No sulfur, nothing else suspicious.

"I don't get it. Maybe they got it wrong, maybe there was no sulfur at the other scene," I say to Sam.

"It _is_ weird," he says.

Dean walks back over to us. "The witness was the vic's friend. He was a little hesitant to admit it, but you know what he said he saw? A soldier. A soldier from the Civil War."

"What?" I ask, confused. That definitely sounds like a ghost, not a demon.

"He said that he and his friend were walking home after a party, and then this guy just appeared, practically ripped the heart out of the vic."

"Huh," I say.

A little research into the town shows that it was nearby the location of one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on American soil. There were nearly eight thousand killed here over three days. I can't help but wonder just how many decided to stick around.

The next day, we go to the scene where there was reported sulfur, to see if there is in fact any there to start with and if there is, if it might have come from an explainable source.

However, we're puzzled even more when we discover that not only is there sulfur, plenty of it, but there is no explanation besides a demon.

We keep searching throughout the day. We talk to a woman whose husband left for work one day but never showed up. He's the only one to disappear, so he's gotta be the one possessed by the demon.

Based on information from witnesses and security cams to other recent deaths, a recurring feature in every murder is a pale figure, dressed in a gray or blue Civil War uniform. Like most videos of ghosts, there was lots of flickering and glitchy stuff happening on the screen.

The footage has left the local police absolutely puzzled. One of the guys we talked to said he thought it was some crazy serial killer with a habit of dressing up in costume to kill his victims.

There's one piece of video, though, which is different. A convenience store clerk had been found with his neck broken a week ago, and when we went to look at the security cam footage of that, the attacker wasn't the usual ghostly soldier.

"Pause there," Sam says. "Rewind a little bit. There." He points to the screen, right where the eyes of the attacker are. They're black, undeniably entirely black. More than that, the person matches the description of the disappeared man.

"Demon," Dean says. "What are a bunch of ghosts and a demon doing cooped up in one town together?"

We decide to go find out for ourselves. Now that we have an idea of what we're dealing with, that abandoned factory on the edge of town is our next stop.


	12. The Demon

We sneak through the halls of the abandoned factory. I have a shot gun with rock salt rounds, Sam's got the knife, and Dean has the Colt. Again, as we walk, I feel horrifically loud compared to the brothers. Even the sounds of my light footsteps seem to echo deafeningly.

"We're gonna have to work on that," Dean whispers to me as we're slipping from one room into another. "This is ridiculous."

"Shut up," I grumble back.

We see light flickering from a room, like candlelight, so Dean peers around the corner into it. "Nobody's there," he whispers to us, so we walk in.

There's something like an altar set up on an old counter in this big, spacious, empty room.

"Come on," Dean mutters furiously. "Demons, ghosts, _and_ witches?"

Upon a closer inspection, the altar has some bones and other various items I couldn't name in a bowl, some drips of blood, a pentagram drawn in the middle of a cloth, some candles spread out on the edges.

"What's this doing here?" Sam wonders aloud.

I look over everything. "It's like… some kind of ghost summoning spell," I say, recognizing the basic format from something I'd read in a book.

"That would explain why there's ghosts _and_ a demon," Dean says, a dark kind of amusement in his tone.

"I guess we should get rid of this, then," Sam says, gesturing towards the set-up.

"I don't think so," a voice says from across the room. All of us whip our heads towards the source.

It's the demon.

Dean immediately raises the Colt, prepared to fire, but the demon flicks his wrist and the gun flies across the room.

"Oh, please," he says. He slowly walks towards us, passing through a patch of moonlight. His hair is dark and tidy, and he's wearing the suit that was originally on his meatsuit, though at this point its splattered with blood. His eyes are pure black.

All three of us stand there paralyzed.

Slowly and as subtly as possible, Sam starts edging towards the demon, his knife held up in front of him defensively.

"I don't think so," the demon says, making a motion with his hand that flings Sam against a wall and makes him stick there, three feet in the air. The knife clatters to the ground. "You too," he adds, looking at me and Dean, and as he swishes his hand, I feel myself hurling backwards until I hit a wall and the breath is knocked out of me. I can't move. Even if I was as strong as the brothers are, I doubt I could break past this.

The demon starts chanting something in Latin, meandering with a confident ease towards the altar.

I've been learning a little bit of Latin, and I catch a word or two here and there. "Deceased" pops up a couple of times, and "summon" is another word that makes a few appearances. I glance over at Sam and Dean's faces and they both look frustrated and determined, struggling against the power that's holding us all still.

Finally, the demon pulls out a knife, makes a long, deep cut across his hand, and lets the blood drip into the bowl on the altar.

Suddenly the temperature in the room drops about twenty degrees. I feel a shudder run down my spine. It's familiar. Not the location, not the demon, but the general feeling of the room. I got this feeling when the ghost girl nearly killed me.

Except this time, it's so much worse. I found out why pretty quickly, as soon as soldiers start forming around the room. There's five, then ten, then twenty. Truly, for a place where so many died, it's not that many. But with just three of us, it seems like an army.

I know then that I'm going to die. It's so unfair. I'd _just_ started hunting, this is my second case as a professional, and I'm even going to see it through to the end. I feel an involuntary tear slide down my cheek.

All of us drop suddenly. I twist my ankle a little bit because I wasn't expecting to fall, but I barely notice with so much adrenaline pumping through my veins. The demon says something, a command, and all twenty of the ghosts turn to face the three of us.

"Run," Dean says forcefully. I don't need to be told twice. I pick up my shotgun and hightail it out of there, ignoring the pain in my ankle.

But ghosts are pretty hard, if not impossible, to outrun. As soon as I've dashed past one, more just flicker into existence right in front of me. I fire a shot of salt and keep running. I can hear heavy footsteps behind me and know the brothers are following, though more behind than they should be. They must have picked up the Colt and the knife.

I have to shoot every twenty feet or so just to be able to keep going. My hands shake so much that I can barely reload shells into my gun when I've used up the two shots I have.

Heading back the same direction we came in, we reach the exit with twenty vengeful spirits under the command of a demon still on our tails.

We reach the door and I turn around to shoot one more time to get the closest ghosts to disappear, just for a time, so that we can have more of a head start in getting the hell out of here.

Sam and Dean rush past me, fling the door open and rush out. I'm only half a step behind them, but before I even have a chance to react, the door slams shut, and it won't budge no matter how much I pull on the handle.

"Katie!" Sam shouts frantically on the other side.

"Sam!" I can hear him and Dean trying to force the door open unsuccessfully.

"Well, well," I hear from behind me, spinning to look at the demon sauntering towards me. "Look what I caught." He says a few words in Latin, and the ghosts filling the room seem to melt away.

"It's no good, boys," the demon calls to Sam and Dean. "That door and every other one into this place is locked down tight."

"Katherine," Sam says, a little bit of panic creeping into his voice. "Katie, listen. We _are_ going to figure this out. We're coming to get you. I promise."

"Okay," I say back faintly, really, really wanting to believe him, but I doubt he even hears me. I can barely breathe out of sheer terror.

I shoot the demon with a round of rock salt, and it winces in pain, but there's little effect beyond that. I'm running through every tactic I know to fight a demon in my head.

Dropping my shotgun, I quickly pull out a water bottle filled with holy water, manage to unscrew the cap with my shaking hands, and splash the demon. Swirling steam hisses up from his skin, and the demon screams angrily.

I keep the demon back by continuing to splash him, trying to recite an exorcism at the same time. "Exorcizamus te…" I start, my voice trembling uncontrollably.

"No," the demon snarls, and it telekinetically hurls me fifteen feet across the open and empty room. I hit the ground hard and slide for another few feet. The holy water's been knocked out of my hand, and my shotgun's back where I dropped it. I try to continue the exorcism, my last option. "Omnis immundus spiritus…"

The demon screeches, but I know it's over for me. The demon's advancing towards me and even as I say the words as quickly as I can, there's not going to be enough time to get them all out. There's still pounding coming from the door twenty feet away, but I know Sam and Dean won't be able to get in.

I'm halfway through the spell when the demon is right over me. He kneels down next to me and clenches my throat in his hand so that my air is cut off. I can't continue with the spell.

"To kill or not to kill?" the demon muses to itself. "Ah. I know. I can't wait to see the look on the Winchesters' faces when they see that I've possessed their precious little pet."

All of heaven and hell knows the Winchesters, which is a bad thing at the moment. I feel a shiver run down my spine. This demon's going to do his best to make me suffer as much as possible before I die.

The demon eases up the pressure on my throat a little and I cough. "I'd like to see you try," I rasp, glad now that I got that tattoo. As much as I don't want to die, the prospect of getting possessed by a demon sounds a thousand times worse.

"Oh," he says distastefully. He pulls the collar of my shirt down until he can see the tattoo.

He pulls the knife he had before out of a pocket. I close my eyes, bracing for death…

But the demon just slashes deeply through my tattoo. I scream in pain. The demon cuts again, this time taking his time in dragging the knife deeply through the tattoo in the other direction, effectively putting a big X through it. I grit my teeth but avoid crying out this time. Blood is already starting to well up on top of the tattoo, and it's warm and sticky as it soaks my shirt and jacket.

"Terrific," the demon says. He throws his head back and lets out the scream that's always accompanied by the thick black smoke of a demon.

"No," I whisper, but it's too late. I can't stop it. I feel the demon starting to take control, easily spreading throughout every inch of my body.

I can feel some of the demon's thoughts. I know its name now. _William_.

He stands up—I stand up.

"Let's make this a little more interesting, shall we?" he says aloud, in my voice. _No, no, no!_ I'm shouting at William in my head, but he ignores me. He pulls the gun out of the back of my belt and holds against my head, and shoots.

I am officially dead. If the Winchesters manage to kill me with one of their demon-killing weapons, great. I'm dead. If I'm just exorcised, I'm still dead. I know there's only one possible outcome of this all.

I wish my body was my own, so I could scream, or cry, or do _anything_. But it's not. So I just let myself go numb, wishing that we'd never come here.

_[A/N: I don't know whether to kill off Katherine or not. Any ideas? I can try to keep the fan fiction going if you don't want it to end.]_


	13. Possession

The demon eases up on its power, and almost instantaneously, both Winchester brothers burst in through the door they had been pounding on.

They take in the scene quickly. The lifeless body of the demon's previous meatsuit. The shotgun left near the door and the bottle of holy water a few feet from that. Me, standing there, gun in hand, blood pouring from my head and soaking through my t-shirt.

"_No_," Sam whispers, an expression of agony visible on his face. I wish I could tell him it's going to be all right, that I'm fine, just to get that look off of his face. But it's not all right. I'm not fine. I will _never_ be fine. I am a walking corpse, and everyone in the room knows it.

I wish I could at least tell them how much they mean to me, how much I love both of them, how grateful I am to them for giving me a family just once in my life, even if it was only for a brief time. I wish I could tell them good-bye.

"She's gone," Dean says to Sam softly, gently putting a hand on his brother's arm, while still remaining tense and ready to fight, the Colt in hand and pointed at my—William's— face. While my being possessed and pretty much dead seems to make Sam want to give up, I can tell it's just providing fuel for Dean. I can see the fury in his eyes, the promise to the demon there: _I will make you suffer_.

The demon laughs. I can feel him in my mind, pleased to cause so much pain to both of them.

"Very observant, Dean," he says with a grin. "She is gone. I'm all that's keeping her alive now."

"You son of a bitch," Dean growls, clicking back the hammer on the gun.

"I dare you," William says, spreading his arms wide in an inviting gesture. He's sure Dean won't shoot, that he's safe, but I keep hoping. _Please shoot, please shoot. You can do it, Dean. Pull the damn trigger. End it._

He doesn't. He just starts to lower the gun. Next to him, silent tears have started streaming down Sam's face.

_NO!_ I scream in my mind at the demon. I try to explosively use my will to retake my body. It works, just for a second. "Shoot, Dean!" I shout, before the demon wrests back control and plasters on a smile filled with confidence he doesn't really have.

Sam and Dean are shocked. Dean's raised the gun back up, but he's still not doing anything. The demon waits patiently, with interest in the two of them. He listens to them as they talk.

"Don't, Dean. Maybe we can still save her," Sam murmurs to Dean.

"It's too late," Dean says, with a pained expression. "We have to. She told us to."

"But with what we know, what we _can_ know?"

"Sam…"

"We can make a deal," Sam says. "_I_ can make a deal."

"Sam, you can't—"

"You can't tell me what to do, Dean," Sam says bitterly.

"She wouldn't want you to," Dean says abruptly, totally honestly.

And it's true. As much as I don't want to die, the prospect of Sam going to hell, ever, is even worse.

I wish I could tell him that Dean's right, he shouldn't trade his soul, but I can't regain control of myself, not again. Still, Sam glances over at me, hoping I'll offer some type of affirmation that I can't give. Fortunately, the expression on his face shows that he realizes Ireally wouldn't want him to trade his soul for mine.

Dean whispers something furiously at Sam, and Sam replies angrily. I don't know what they're saying, just that it's heated. They argue for a few long moments before it's quiet again.

Finally Sam turns his head and looks furiously at the ground before stalking off back towards the door.

"Katherine, we're coming back for you. You're going to be fine," Dean assures me, sounding confident, but I doubt he believes what he's saying. He's started backing away towards the door.

The demon and I just watch them go carefully, always facing us, out the door they came in through. I feel the demon's satisfaction as he crosses my arms, but I just feel my spirits drop. What if they don't come back? What if they can't come up with a way to save me but don't have the strength to kill the demon and by extension, me?

A few minutes after they're gone, a thought passes through the demon's mind. _Let's try out this new meatsuit, see how she kills._

_NO!_ I shout at the demon, but he ignores me. He waits around, wandering through the abandoned building absentmindedly, until he's satisfied that the Winchesters are far enough away to leave safely.

I try for the entire ten minute walk into town to regain control of my body like I did for a brief moment when the demon was talking to the brothers. It doesn't work. _Turn around, turn around, turn around_, I say over and over to my body, but it won't listen. I feel like a disembodied spirit, moving and conscious but with no control over a physical form of my own.

When we reach the town, William plops down on a bench and watches the occasional passerby, like he's browsing from a catalog.

Eventually, one catches his interest. _Mm, is that the mayor? My old meatsuit knew her. I bet she's going home to her husband and kids._ He licks my lips and stands up, following the sharply dressed woman at a distance.

She turns into a nearly-empty parking lot, where three cars are parked, and heads toward the silver sedan.

_Oh, wow. A silver sedan. How original,_ William says in his head sarcastically.

_Don't_, I plead to the demon.

_I hope she'll still be fun to rip the heart out of._

_STOP,_ I beg, not really expecting my requests to work, but not wanting to just sit back and do nothing.

We glide towards the woman, silent, more silent than I ever was when I was purely myself. I can't hear the faint rustle of clothes or the soft tap of shoes on the pavement.

William only lets his last step make any noise, at the point when he's two feet away from the woman. She hears the crunch of gravel and spins around. A startled cry escapes from her mouth.

"Oh, uh, hello," she says, raking her hair out of her face with her fingers in a flustered sort of way. "Do you need something dear?"

After her initial confusion, she starts to notice something about me, primarily the dried blood all over my clothes and skin, the slashes on my chest, and the red still dripping from my head.

She starts backing up, frantic fear filling her eyes, but she bumps into her car. There's nowhere to go.

The woman is about to scream, her mouth opening, and I know the demon must have let his eyes go completely black, giving him away entirely.

William grins and jabs a hand into her abdomen. I can feel the flesh parting under the enormous strength of the demon, the muscles tearing and eventually a bone cracking. He grips onto the woman's heart, and I can feel it beating under my fingers for a second, before he rips it out.

_No,_ I whisper in my head.

_Oh, you know you loved it,_ William says mockingly.

_Shut up,_ I growl back.

In response, the demon takes a big bite out of the woman's heart before throwing it aside onto the ground.

_Yum. Nutritious._

_You're a monster._

A smile pulls up on the corners of my mouth—the demon's mouth. _I've been called worse._

Content to have made me miserable for the day, William heads back to his hideout on the edge of town, leaving the mayor's body in a heap next to her sedan, now more red than silver.

I'm seething in my own miserable thoughts when the demon throws open the door to the factory, walks in a few steps, and then stops. He tries stepping forward again, but is prevented. It's like there's an invisible barrier there.

Slowly, the demon raises my eyes to the ceiling. Frustration and anger explodes in the demon's mind at what we see and makes me want to flinch. There's a devil's trap spray-painted on the ceiling. Despite the demon's feelings, I, however, feel a huge sense of relief upon seeing the circle-enclosed pentagram. And it's more than just something to keep the demon trapped. It means they _did_ come back.

"I told you we'd be back for you, Katie," a voice says, and Dean and Sam walk out of the shadows.

_[A/N: Huh, it's surprisingly hard to write in first person when the main character's being possessed by a demon. Sorry if there were any weird spots in there, it's hard sometimes to tell which pronoun to use. Anyway, please leave a review!]_


	14. Resurrection

_[Note: This chapter is rated M]_

In a matter of minutes, I, or rather my body, is tied tightly to a chair, rope tightly wrapping my wrists to the arms of the chair, my ankles to the legs.

Dean and Sam are discussing something across the room, far enough away so the demon can't hear, but both of you can see them gesturing, waving their hands around as they talk.

The demon is humming softly, a tune that sounds like something that would be played at a funeral.

_Shut up,_ I tell him, but William ignores me and hums a little louder.

Finally, the two hunters come over and address the demon. "Okay, listen," Dean says. "Let's make a deal. You heal her, and you get to live. Otherwise, you're dead."

The demon grins. "The only way to kill me involves killing her."

Sam crosses his arms. "I'm sure you want to live more than you want her to die."

It's true. The demon is torn between wanting the Winchesters to suffer and wanting to live. Still, he gambles that they're bluffing. I know them, so I they're not. They've killed people they've cared about when they became monsters.

"Go ahead," William says nonchalantly. "Kill me."

The two men don't look surprised. They must know what the demon is thinking.

Dean pulls out the demon knife and walks into the devil's trap, careful not to mess up any of the spray-painted lines.

He holds the knife up to my throat and presses down lightly. The blade's so sharp that it nicks the skin even with so little pressure, and blood runs down my neck.

"Are you sure?" Dean asks William, his face close to mine.

William's previous sureness is slowly waning.

_They're gonna kill us, you son of a bitch. They're not bluffing,_ I tell him furiously.

The demon catches what I'm thinking and the hostility so present in Dean's features and changes his mind.

He clenches his jaw. "Fine. I'll heal her."

I can feel him starting to repair the bullet wound through my head that he put there, the damaged brain tissue knitting back together. It's kind of gross, really, but I don't mind. It means I'm coming back to life.

He cracks a couple of ribs just to spite me, because there's not really any way the brothers will know about it until I'm me again. I don't feel the pain yet, but I can feel they're broken.

"Done," William says when the bullet hole through my head is gone.

"The cuts on her chest," Sam says, indicating the slashes through the tattoo.

"You'll have to fix those up yourself. There's gonna be trouble if there's a working anti-possession tattoo on her while she's being possessed."

"Fine. But if she's not completely fine once you're gone, we _will_ summon you back and kill you. Don't think we won't."

_Trust me, they'll do it,_ I think towards William, though he's already pretty convinced.

Dean starts the exorcism spell. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…"

He keeps chanting until he finishes: "…Te rogamus, audi nos." When he's finally done, my head is thrown back and black smoke pours out of my mouth in a scream. And then William's gone.

As soon as the demon's headed back to hell, the pain that had been replaced by numbness when I was possessed is back. I slump in the chair, agony tearing through me, from the broken ribs and the deep cuts still on my chest.

Sam and Dean rush over and start sawing at the holy-water soaked ropes with the knives they already have in hand. Once I'm freed from the chair, Sam helps me up. I'd give him a grateful kiss, but I there's blood caked onto my chin.

I'm wiping an arm across my chin in a futile attempt to clean some of it off when I remember that the source of the blood is a human heart that I took a bite out of. I'm suddenly nauseous. I turn to the side and throw up on the floor.  
"You okay?" Sam asks, his arm around me, as I wince in pain. Retching is really the worst thing for broken ribs.

"Yeah, just…" I start, coughing a little bit. "Just a bite of human heart in my stomach that was making me feel a little sick." I try to smile but fail.

"Ew," Dean says, a slightly disgusted look on his face. Sam shoots him a look.

"Come on," Sam says gently, letting me lean on him heavily for support. I manage to limp to the Impala outside, leaning on Sam the whole way. Still, for a girl who was dead ten minutes ago, I'm actually in pretty good shape.

With that thought in my head, I plop down in the back seat and pass out.

* * *

I open my eyes after what seems like an eternity later after a dreamless sleep. All I can see is the white expanse of a boring motel ceiling. I start to sit up a little bit, but it makes me dizzy so I give up and flop back down.

The cuts on my chest are still _really_ painful, but I'm pretty sure someone's at least stitched them up. It hurts to breathe with my broken ribs, but it's bearable. I'm clean, too. Well, clean_er_, at least. I'm still wearing my blood-soaked t-shirt and pants, but my skin's free of blood, at least.

"Hey," Sam says from a few feet away.

My heart skips a beat. "I didn't notice you there," I say, rolling onto my side to look at him, wincing a little bit in pain as I do so. He's sitting on the second bed in the room, his dad's journal open in his lap.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, a worried look on his face.

I roll onto my back again. "Ugh."

That's about as far as I'm going with that.

"Do you— do you want to talk?"

I shake my head. "Not now." I sit up fully this time, pushing through the dizziness and managing not to fall over as I get my bearings. "Where's Dean?"

"He went out for a drink about an hour ago."

"Okay." I squeeze my eyes shut for a few moments. "Is there any water?"

"Yeah." Sam passes me a water bottle that's sitting on the nightstand. I manage to unscrew the lid and drink the entire thing.

"Careful there," Sam says. "You're going to get sick if you drink that entire thing too quickly."

I'd usually make a sarcastic comment, but I'm not feeling up to it right now, so I don't say anything, just nod tiredly. "Hey, I'm gonna go take a shower," I tell him, standing up.

"Sure," Sam says. "We put the bag with your clean clothes just outside the bathroom." I give him a thumbs-up and he watches me as I stumble my way to the bathroom.

The shower is _so_ nice. I wash the blood off of me and watch the red swirl down the drain. It's a startlingly red color. The hot water stings on my newly-stitched up wounds and the few cuts I got somehow in the last twenty-four hours, but I just grit my teeth and get through it. It's worth it to be clean.

I get out of the shower and towel off, and then slide into a t-shirt and a pair of plaid pajama pants. The boys don't wear pajamas when they sleep, but I still find it hard to get out of the habit, especially when my regular clothes become grimy and sweaty after a day of hunting. Besides, of all days, I deserve to be comfortable and wear pajamas tonight, don't I? After that whole ordeal?

I come back out and plop back on the bed where I had been sleeping.

"How long was I asleep, anyway?" I ask Sam as I towel my hair dry.

"About twenty-four hours," Sam says, closing his father's journal and setting it on the nightstand. I finish drying my hair and toss the towel to the floor on the other side of the bed, not really giving a damn about making a mess.

"Twenty-four hours? Wow. I'm impressed."

Sam moves across the gap between us and sits next to me on the edge of the bed. He runs the tips of his fingers lightly down the side of my face. I turn so I can look up into his beautiful green eyes.

"I was so worried about you," he murmurs, leaning in to give me a gentle kiss on the lips.

"I was worried about _you,_" I admit. It's true. After everyone he's already lost, he's already hurting enough. I didn't want to add to that pain.

He smiles lightly. "You're ridiculous," he says teasingly, giving me a longer, lingering kiss, though it's just as gentle as the first.

It's sweet, but too mild. I want more.

There's so much adrenaline and so many hormones pumping through me that I hardly feel my broken ribs as I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him close, giving him a more passionate kiss. I fall back on the bed and pull Sam with me. He keeps kissing me, his hands resting on the bed on either side of me as we make out.

"Hey," I say, breathing a little heavily after pulling back for a second. "When's Dean gonna be back?"

"Don't worry," he tells me breathlessly. "I doubt he'll be back any time soon."

"Good," I mumble before I'm cut off by Sam's lips on mine. We can't stop now. Sam leans back and pulls off his t-shirt and I slide out of mine at the same time. We admire each other for a few moments. I'm in a lacy black bra that I can tell Sam likes by the half-smile he has on his face, and I can't help but grin at the impressive set of muscles that he's revealed.

"You should take your shirt off more often," I mumble as he starts unclasping my bra.

"I could say the same to you."

"God, I love you so much," I sigh, but he shuts me up with a kiss.

* * *

There's a click as the door unlocks and Dean walks in, a paper bag in his hand that I assume is filled with groceries.

"Woah," he says, taking in the sight: Sam and I sitting in the same bed, the sheets pulled up to cover everything, and clothes scattered around the bed. "Awkward."

We both just look at him, huge grins on our faces. The past twenty minutes were probably some of the best in my life.

"I'll just… I'm going to get another room," he says, stepping back out of the room and closing the door behind him, giving both of us a wink as he does so.

Sam and I giggle uncharacteristically. I scoot closer to him and he puts an arm over my shoulder so we can cuddle.

"Will you tell me a story?" I ask Sam, looking up at his face.

He smiles. "Sure. Like what?"

"Something about you. But… but not work-related."

Sam ponders what to talk about for a moment before he starts. "So there was this one professor I had at Stanford, he had the _weirdest_ habits…"

We spend the rest of the night sharing funny stories, sad stories, personal stories, and I feel closer to him than I ever have before.

_[A/N: Thanks for reading! Please leave a review! This was my first time writing an M-rated type scene so I'm not quite sure how that turned out… Anyway, I'm probably not going to be posting a lot in the next month because I have another big writing project that I'm going to be working on but I'll try putting up chapters when I can.]_


	15. Kids

_[I'm back! I've finished writing my NaNo novel and now I have time to work on this again. Here you go~]_

The boys demand that we take a few weeks off so I can recover. It was rough, what I went through, and they know that situations like that leave psychological scars deeper than the physical ones.

They ask where I want to go, and I shrug and suggest Colorado. I'd lived there once, a long time ago, and I thought the mountains were beautiful. Seeing them every day would be nice for a vacation, if we _had_ to have one.

So, twenty hours later, we're staying at a (relatively) nice motel just outside of Boulder, Colorado. This place, apparently, is in the center of a large patch of nothingness on the supernatural radar. There shouldn't be anything crazy going on nearby, nothing that will tempt the boys to get in the car and leave me for a day or two. That was their idea. I wish they would keep hunting without me but they're both so worried about me that they refused.

Usually, in my old life, three weeks or so would seem like a long time, but would pass much more quickly than I would expect. It was always over before I realized it had really begun. However, after experiencing such tightly-packed schedules as I've had with the Winchesters, three weeks passes agonizingly slowly.

"I'm bored," I whine, about a week in, staring at the muted TV that's playing _Dr. Sexy M.D._ "Can we _please_ go hunting again?"

"No," Dean says, not even looking up from his computer.

"It would get my mind off things. This is just torture."

Sam's sitting next to me on the couch, and he gives my hand a squeeze. "You don't need any extra stress, Katie."

"But I'm _bored,_" I repeat. When I'm bored, I have nothing to keep me awake for long periods of time, to keep me from falling asleep, into the hellish nightmares I've been experiencing…

Every night for the past week I've been waking up screaming from my dreams. Remembering the demon, what he did… and not only that, but of what could have been. Primarily, going to hell. Alone. Watching both of the brothers, the two people I care about most, being killed in front of me, again and again. When I had woken up after it the first time, in a cold sweat, it had taken Sam half an hour to calm me down, and then both him and Dean were up for the rest of the night, watching me to make sure I was all right.

It makes me feel weak, needing them to watch after me like this, but I don't bring it up because I know that they'd say I'm not weak, that anyone who'd been through what I had would be experiencing the same. But they've been through worse, I know, and they cope just fine. They don't need to be comforted after what they've seen, they can handle it themselves. But I can't.

Even if I can't hide it at night when I have the nightmares, I do my best to tuck away the turmoil inside during the day. I pretend I'm perfectly fine, actually successfully convincing myself, acting like all that's bothering me is boredom and not horrific memories.

"Hey, Sam," Dean calls, motioning for his brother to come over to look at something on the computer. "Come look at this."

"Um, do I get to see?" I ask, crossing my arms.

"No," Dean says flatly. "It's work-related."

"I want to work!" I say indignantly. "I just told you–"

"We're not working for another week, at least," he tells me firmly, glancing up at me.

"But you just said–"

"It's just a precaution. Nothing important. Now shoo. Go do something that does not involve work or stress."

I just sit on the bed and stare at them from across the room, my arms crossed and a scowl on my face. They're whispering to each other softly enough so that I can't hear what they're saying, annoyingly enough.

They talk for about five minutes and then Sam come sits on the bed next to me, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear for me. I don't bat his hand away, but it doesn't make my scowl go away either.

"Are _you_ going to tell me what's going on?" I ask grumpily.

"It's nothing, just a couple of killings. Probably not our thing anyway. Don't worry about it."

"I'm so _bored_, though!" I repeat, again, for the umpteenth time this week.

Sam sighs. "I know." He thinks for a minute. "What did you used to do for fun? Back… before this."

"I don't know," I say, unable to think of anything immediately. This life is so intense that it's hard to think of the time before I've been living it. "I watched Netflix, I guess. Did homework. Went to parties."

"You did homework for fun?" Dean asks in a judgy tone from across the room.

"Yes. Shut up. I liked learning."

"Nerd alert," he mutters, before going back to surfing the web or whatever it is he's doing on the computer.

"I like nerds," Sam murmurs to me, giving me a peck on the lips. I smile. "Well, let's do one of those things. Besides homework. We're not doing homework, as much as the two of us are nerds."

"I'd love to go partying," Dean suggests.

"Shut up, Dean, nobody asked you. This vacation is for Katie."

"Thanks, Sam," I say with a grin. It's cute how he stands up for me like that. "Partying's fine, though. I mean, I never liked them too much, but with somebody to go with it should be better. I really liked that last time we went to the bar."

"The last time we went to a bar, we left after ten minutes and went to see a movie," Sam says.

"Exactly."

"Let's try staying for longer this time. We can go somewhere, a little, uh, _classier_, if you'd like," Dean says.

I roll my eyes. I guess with these two, it wouldn't be _so_ bad. "Fine. But I'm gonna get pissed if you go off to flirt with someone instead of talking to me and Sam, got it?"

Dean makes a noise. "But that's kind of the _point–_"

"Dean," Sam growls warningly.

"Fine," Dean mutters.

And so it is that we're at a night club, a few hours later, with drinks in our hands.

"This is so gay," Dean says, making a face at the light pink-colored drink he's holding.

"Are you saying something's wrong with being gay?" I ask, raising an eyebrow and taking a sip of my own pink drink.

"No!" Dean says defensively. "Of course not. Just with me being gay. Women are my thing. Definitely. And pink does not get that message across."

"I'm pretty sure pink isn't considered gay here, anyway," I say, looking out over the crowds. There are two or three guys with pink drinks in front of them who are quite successfully making out with girls they've picked up. The two gay guys I _do_ see together do not, as a matter of fact, have pink drinks.

These three girls start whispering to each other nearby, and the instincts of the boys kick in as they innately start eavesdropping. I'm a little bit annoyed at first until I hear what they're talking about and then I listen in too.

"I'm sure it was just a prank, Amanda," one of them is saying quietly.

"It wasn't, though, I'm sure. I could _tell_ that it was something… something not normal, you know? Their eyes were _pitch black," _the one called Amanda emphasizes.

"Are you sure? It was pretty dark out. Maybe you just saw wrong," the other friend tells her.

"They were _not_ acting normal, though. They weren't talking like two little kids, they sounded like… like they were adults."

Dean, Sam, and I all glance at each other.

"I guess that case you were looking at _is_ a job, after all, huh?" I ask them.

"I guess so," Sam says. "Hold on, I'll go talk to them."

"I'm coming with you," I say, slipping my hand into his.

He looks a little hesitant but finally allows me to, and we go walk over to the group. Dean stands nearby, sipping from his pink drink and inconspicuously continuing to listen.

"Hey," Sam says when we reach the girls, who are all huddled together. They disperse a little bit, perking up upon seeing Sam, and then deflating a little when they notice him holding my hand. "I, uh, heard what you were talking about."

"Oh, yeah, I think our friend saw some ghosts or something," the first one says, scuffing her shoe against the floor. Easy how quickly the opinions turn when there's a hot guy to impress. Not like he would be impressed by a ghost story anyway.

"Yeah," Sam says. "I was just curious–my girlfriend and I are paranormal investigators and we were actually looking into that case. We'd love to hear your side of the story."

Amanda looks like she's about to swoon. "Of course. Sure. Well, um, I was at my apartment, alone, and then I heard someone knocking on the door. And it was one in the morning, last night, so I thought it was a little weird, but I went to get the door anyway, and there were these two kids, little boys, like, ten years old or something."

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and still looking at the ceiling, continues, "They were both looking at the ground. And then one of them was like, 'We need to come in and use your phone.' And I was like, really terrified right then, for some reason. I didn't really have a reason to be, but I was, and then at the same time I really wanted to let them in. It was so weird. And they kept saying 'We need to use your phone,' in this creepy demanding monotone voice, and then one of them looked up and I saw his eyes and…" She swallows, remembering the image. "And his eyes were all black. I was _really_ freaked out then, and then they got even more insistent, and their tones were so commanding, and I was so scared that I just shut the door and went into my bedroom and locked the door and kept the light on and held onto a frying pan to like, you know, use as a weapon," she adds, blushing a little bit in embarrassment.

"Did they come back?" Sam asks, his eyebrows furrowed. "I mean, did you see them again that night?"

"No," Amanda admits, "But I could hear them for a few minutes afterwards. Really loud, still begging to use my phone. It was really scary."

"I bet," Sam says, nodding sympathetically. "I recommend salt next time," he says, trying to keep up his paranormal investigator façade and at the same time offering the girls some sound advice. "I mean, if there is a next time. Hopefully there won't be."

"Oh. Oh yeah. Thanks," the third girl says and all three of them nod.

"Yeah. Thanks for telling me about it," Sam tells Amanda with a smile, and they all seem to melt a little.

As we walk away, I whisper, "I think they're in love."

"Really?" Sam asks dubiously, glancing back.

"You really don't know the effect you have on people, do you?"

"What effect?"

"The effect that makes people want to do _this_," I say, standing up on my toes and giving him a kiss.

"I guess not, no," he says after I'm done kissing him, a smile on his face.

We reach Dean and he nods at us. He had been listening to everything.

"Looks like we've got another case," he says, and all three of us grin in anticipation. It's only been eight days, but we've missed this a lot.

_[A/N: Thanks for reading! Please leave a review!]_


	16. Black-Eyes

16 - Black-Eyes

"I can't believe that the case just showed up like this in the middle of a supernatural-free zone," Sam says, dipping his fries in some ketchup. The three of us are eating some fast food before we go to visit a house of one of the victims.

"I'm glad it did," I say. Both of the brothers shoot me exasperated looks. They were hesitant to let me even help out with this in the first place, but I begged them until they finally caved in. They're still trying to be cautious with me around, not letting me do _too_ much. I tried to convince them I'm fine, but they know that I'm not. My nightmares give me away.

"You shouldn't be," Dean says. He throws his napkin on the table. "Let's get going. Come on."

"Ugh," I say, dropping the half a burger I have left back onto my tray. Sam and I stand up and follow him to the car, stopping briefly to dump our trash in one of the trashcans. I didn't get to finish my lunch. I've haven't been feeling hungry lately, and at the rate I've been eating my burger, we would run out of daylight by the time I finished.

A few minutes later, we're at a house out by the edge of town. A sheriff has agreed to meet us here to show us the scene of the crime. As he shakes all of our hands, he introduces himself as Sheriff Jacobs. He's in his fifties or so, with thick white hair and a white mustache.

The killing that took place at this house happened just a couple days ago, recent enough that Sam and Dean didn't see it in the paper when they had looked, but a quick call to the police station and here we were.

"Yeah, the husband came home and found his wife splattered all around this room," the sheriff says tonelessly, gesturing around us at the entrance area of the house. It's been cleaned up since it happened, but there are still blood stains everywhere. On the ceiling, the walls, the floor… it makes me a little bit queasy, just thinking about whatever could've caused this. I feel awful for the husband, finding the bits and pieces of his wife after a long day at work…

I push the image out of my head.

"Any ideas what–or who–could have done this?" Dean asks.

The sheriff lets out a long exhalation. "I'd say a bomb, but there's no evident damage on the house that would be present with that, so no, I have no clue."

"Okay. Mind if we look around a little more?"

"Go ahead."

Sam and Dean start looking around, checking along cracks in the floor and around the area. I don't really want to get any closer of a look at the blood stains than I already have, so I stand back with Sheriff Jacobs and watch them.

"So the other murders," I say. "Any leads on those?"

"No. Just as mysterious as this one." He's a little bit cross, more in a frustrated way than anything else. I can understand why. This case is going to be impossible to crack, and even if the police manage to figure out the killers, they wouldn't believe it anyway.

"Was there any evidence at the other places?"

"No," he says with a sigh. "I can give you the files for those cases, though, if you'd like. Do you think they're related?"

"Yessir. That's why we were called in."

"Are you thinking a serial killer?"

"Something along those lines, yeah." We stand there in silence for a moment. "So those other killings were like this one? The victims–" I clear my throat "–the victims all over the room?"

"Yes."

I watch as Dean mutters something to Sam, showing him something he has in his hand, though I can't see from this angle. They both stand up and walk back over to the sheriff and me.

"All right, Sheriff," Dean says. "Thank you for your time." He passes the man a business card with his cell on it. "Just call this number if you learn anything else about the cases."

"Sure," the sheriff says. We wave politely and leave.

"What was it you were showing Sam?" I ask Dean as we're getting into the car.

"What do you think?"

I sigh. It could be any number of things.

"Sulfur," Sam answers for me. "There was sulfur there."

My eyes widen. "Demons?"

"That's what it looks like. Sulfur, kids with black eyes… Sounds pretty definitive."

Well, this is going to be fun. Dealing with the things that literally killed me during our last hunt. How unfortunate, running into two demon cases in a row.

"We should find the connection between the killings, see if there's anything linking them," Dean suggests.

So that's what we do. We head back to the motel and spread out the case files all over the table, looking through them. It takes a while, probably thirty minutes, before Sam finds something.

"Wait a minute," Sam says. "Look at the names. Daina Thompson. Samantha Perry. Winston Chester. There's a theme here. It's us. Dean, Sam, Winchester."

"You mean…" I start slowly. "You mean you think they're trying to tell you something?"

"Or attract our attention. I doubt they have good intentions."

"You don't think that William tipped them off, do you?" I ask in a trembling voice. Though immediately after I say it, I realize the killings have been going on longer than the time since William was exorcised, so it wouldn't make sense.

"William?" Dean asks, raising an eyebrow.

"The demon that was, uh, possessing me."

"I didn't know it had a name."

"I didn't know either until it was inside my head."

There's kind of an awkward moment of silence.

"Um. Well. Maybe they're trying to scare us," Sam says, breaking the quiet and deliberately changing the subject back to the topic at hand. "And they're going to try to find us at some point."

"We should find them first," Dean says. "It would give us the upper hand." He suggests we do what we did with the last demon, marking the victims' locations on a map and then finding an approximate location from there where we could find the demons.

"You do that," I say. "I'll go research these black-eyed kids, see if they've showed up before."

I pull out my laptop and we all settle in to work. First I check some forum websites, searching for the town we're in as a key term. There have been probably ten other people besides the victims who have had the black-eyed kids show up at their doors in this town alone.

Next I check the reliable sites that the Winchesters frequently reference and then skim through the books. After I've gathered enough information, I tell them what I've found.

"It sounds like these aren't quite normal demons. They can only possess children between three and sixteen. They go to people's houses when someone is alone near the door, and then they go and knock on the door and ask for help. Though apparently they're not physically allowed into the house unless someone invites them in, kinda like vampires. And–"

"Wait up," Dean says, holding up a hand. "Who said vampires need to be invited into a house?"

"Uh, common vampire legends?"

"Common vampire legends have it wrong."

"I was just making a comparison," I say, getting a little annoyed that he interrupted my flow.

"Well, for future reference, there are a few things that can't go into a house without being invited in, none of which are vampires. Like that, uh, what was it Sammy? The clown at the circus a couple years ago?"

"A rakshasa," Sam says with a scowl. I remember that he's terrified of clowns and despite my annoyance at Dean I feel the a smile tugging at the corners of my lips.

"Yeah, that," Dean says.

"Okay. Um. Thanks for your contribution. Anyway, they need to be invited in like a rashkasa–"

"Rakshasa."

"Raksasha. But if they are invited in then you're pretty much screwed unless you can get behind another door or out of the house fast enough. They're kind of like… what are they called? Those demons… oh yeah, crossroad demons. They're pretty rare but they collect souls for hell except their victims don't have a choice and they kill right away instead of after ten years."

"That sucks," Sam says.

"But I guess they only collect souls of people who have killed someone, I guess."

"But none of the vics killed anyone, their files don't have murder or manslaughter in them," Dean notes.

"Wait, hold on a sec," Sam says. "What about that Bloody Mary case we worked a really long time ago? She wasn't very picky with her victims. It could be kind of like that, more of an involvement in a death rather than directly killing someone."

A little more gathering of information in the field to be sure that what we're dealing with _is_ the black-eyed children and we have satisfying results.

Diana Thompson was in a car crash fatal to the other driver a few years earlier.

Samantha Perry got an abortion a few months before she died.

And Scott Winters was married to a woman who committed suicide after months of a turbulent marriage.

None of the reasons seemed big enough to go to hell for, but hey, I guess demons aren't too choosy. They'll take what they can get their hands on.

Finally we track down their approximate location. "Great," he says, grinning. "Let's go gank these bastards."

I am, quite frankly, scared. Demons. Again. I was killed by one, and now we're going to hunt one.

"But you're staying here, Katie," Dean adds.

I curse. Despite my fear I don't want to be left out. "Sam?" I ask pleadingly.

His face is apologetic. "I'm sorry, but… I don't think it would be a good idea."

Dean has gotten up and is starting to get ready to go, putting on his jacket and starting to assemble the gun that had been laid out to be cleaned.

"You're going now?" I ask, surprised, jumping to my feet.

"Might as well get it over with," Dean says with a shrug. "No use in waiting."

I look at Sam dubiously, crossing my arms. He shrugs as well, the look on his face saying _What can I say?_ before he stands up to get ready as well.

"Please," I plead.

"Katie," Dean says in a firm voice, stopping what he's doing to glare at me. "You're not coming. And if you are stupid enough to try to follow, we will stop working with you. We'll drop you at the side of the road between this job and the next."

I look to Sam for help, but he's avoiding my eyes. As much as I want to go, to prove that I can overcome my fears and be strong, I know he's worried about me. Despite Dean's rough, to-the-point statement, he doesn't want to object because he knows it's the only thing that will keep me from going.

But it's not. Not really. It's Sam that changes my mind. The fact he's so worried about me feel warm inside. I've never had someone be worried about me before. Especially not to this extent.

"Fine." I uncross my arms and stand solemnly as they get ready. Once Sam has his jacket on, I pull him to me by its collar to give him a kiss. He's a little surprised at first because I was so angry just a second before but it doesn't take long before he melts into it. Dean glances at us with exasperation before heading out the door and closing it behind him.

It's a long kiss. Demons scare me, and it scares me that Sam is going to be facing some tonight. "Be safe," I whisper, my lips against his still, my eyes remaining closed.

"I always am," he whispers back.

"Liar," I growl under my breath as my eyes flick open, shoving him lightly.

"Hey, I'm alive now, even after all I've been through, aren't I?" he asks. "I'll be fine."

He gives me one last peck on the lips before going to the door. I consider saying goodbye for a fraction of a second but I don't like the final sounding of it. I'm not saying goodbye, not for real. Not today, not for a long time.

_He's coming back_, I tell myself confidently, even starting to believe it. _They both are._

_[A/N: I made up all that stuff about the black-eyed kids being a special type of demon, by the way. All lies. Just pretend it's true. But the black-eyed kids are actually something that people have said they've encountered. That's real. Anyway, please leave a review! Thanks for reading :) ]_


	17. Knock, knock

_Knock, knock, knock._ I glance up from my book and towards the door, wondering who it could be. Room service? Probably not at this time of night.

And then I remember what the boys are out doing and get wary. Still, I go to check. Just in case it _is_ a maid or someone warning me that the motel's caught on fire or something. I glance anxiously through the peephole. Nothing. Who was knocking then?

_Knock, knock, knock._ I jump. I look through the peephole again, even more anxious. This time, I glance down, and there they are.

The black-eyed children.

There's two of them, boys, just like that girl at the nightclub described, one about ten, the other about four, and both of them in blue jeans and gray hoodies. Also like she described, they're both looking down at the ground. I can't see their eyes but I know their color anyway.

"Miss," one of them says in a soft, adult-like voice, still looking at the ground. The tone is higher than usual but it's definitely more adult than what should be coming from the mouth of a ten-year old. "We need to use your bathroom."

For some reason, that sounds like perfectly reasonable request, though this is not normal. Definitely not normal. How they even knew I was on the other side of the door, why they're coming _here_ instead of any of the other twenty rooms… Even while I want to open the door, I'm filled with a panic at a level I've hardly ever felt before.

Still, I can't shake the urge to let them in. Without even thinking about it, my hand practically moves itself to the doorknob and twists. The door opens, and they both step in.

"Thanks, miss," the boy says, his tone taking on a sarcastic element. Then he looks up. I don't know what I expected, knowing exactly what these things are, but his eyes are startlingly black. I've only seen such black eyes once before: in my own reflection, when I was possessed.

I stumble backwards.

"S-stay back," I plead quietly, tears already starting to streak down my face, though I know it won't help. They're not going to leave just by my telling them to. Both children start advancing, just as I expected.

Trembling like a leaf, I sprint to grab some salt Dean's duffel and my phone from the couch, and go into the bathroom. At the very least, it provides some form of barrier between me and them. According to my research, I _should_ be safe. Hopefully. But there is misinformation on the sites we check, occasionally.

I sit down against the wall, pulling my knees tight up against my chest.

I try hard not to hyperventilate. Somehow, these kids, who I can still hear calling out to me even from here, switching back to their toneless voices and asking where I've gone, are scarier than anything else I've faced: the ghost, the witches, the war god, even the demon that possessed me. It's like something out of a horror movie. Where the other monsters were scary, of course, and dangerous and awful, these have a creepier, horrifying feel to them that makes me shiver.

I make a circle of salt around myself to keep them out in case they get past the locked bathroom door before dialing up Sam's cell.

"Hey," he says when the line picks up. "How're you holding up?"

"Um," I squeak, my throat dry.

He catches on immediately, sensing the panic from a single syllable. "What's wrong?"

I swallow. "They're here." It doesn't need any more explanation. As if to back up my point, the black-eyed kids call out again, loud enough that I'm sure Sam can hear them.

Sam mumbles a long stream of expletives. "Dean!" he shouts. "We're in the wrong place!"

I hear Dean's muffled voice saying something in the background.

Sam tells him what's going on in a hurried voice, and in seconds, I can hear Dean starting to curse.

"Okay, Katie, don't worry. We're going to be there in ten minutes. Just stay where you are until then. Did you let them in?"

"Uh," I say, swallowing again. "Yes, but I'm in the bathroom now with the door closed."

Sam curses again. "I don't think they can get past that door without you letting them in, so don't, okay?"

"I won't," I promise. I intend not to. I'm so terrified now that I doubt I can even move, even if I wanted to.

"See you soon," Sam says.

He sounds like he's going to hang up, so I blurt out, "Don't hang up. Please."

He pauses. "Okay, I'm not going to hang up. It's okay."

My mind is racing but I think of what I can to defend myself. "Should I try an exorcism?" I ask Sam.

"Yes, try anything you think would work." Sam's voice is calm but I can tell that underneath he is panicked.

Keeping the phone up to my ear, I start chanting. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas…"

The voices outside get louder, more commanding. "Let us in!"

Besides the slight change in volume of the kids' voices, nothing happens even as I continue to chant the spell. "Te rogamus, audi nos," I finish, slightly breathless, more from fear than anything else.

"Did it work?" Sam asks, though he sounds doubtful. He can probably hear the kids on the other side of the door still.

"No," I whisper. I don't know why it didn't work. Maybe because I wasn't loud enough. Maybe because there was a door in the way. But whatever the cause, they're still there and I'm kind of screwed.

"Okay. Don't worry. We're almost there. Five minutes."

"Sam," I say, my voice soft. "If I die here…"

"Shhh," he murmurs on the other side of the line. "Don't even say that."

"But I might. What if they get in? What if I let them in like I did with the front door? What if they call for backup?"

"Don't worry, Katie," Sam says, still keeping his calm voice steady. "Five minutes. Nothing's going to happen."

"But–"

"Do you remember our first kiss?" Sam interrupts.

"Yeah, of course," I say, tears still running down my face from fear. The kids are still making a lot of noise outside, and I really have to focus my hearing to even be able to make out what Sam's saying.

"Think about that moment, okay?" he says softly.

"Okay." And so I do try to think about it. Sam keeps talking, telling me a happy story from his childhood (one of the few) and it's comforting, but background noise. I try to tune out the kids, too, and they're loud and insistent, but I still do my best.

"Katie. Katie?" Sam asks, bringing me back to the present.

"Hm?"

"I'm hanging up now," he tells me.

"No!" I plead.

"We're here."

"Oh."

I leave it at that, but keep holding the phone up to my ear even long after the dial tone has started loudly buzzing.

Suddenly there's a thump and the children stop talking, begging, pleading to come through the door. There's another thump, then I climb to my feet in the ring of salt around me and stand there, shaking.

I can't hear a lot from in here. Just silence. But I _am_ a hunter, a hunter-in-training, really, and I've got back-up now. I should go out there and help. I _need_ to go out there and help. I've seen what a single demon can do before. It could take on three people with a little bit of difficulty, but it could do it. Two demons, versus two hunters though? And especially when they've never come across anything like this before.

Slowly, I reach for the handle of the door, can of salt in hand. In one quick motion, I twist the handle and push open the door as I step out.

The children have moved partway across the room, both facing away from me. As is typical for demons, they've thrown Sam and Dean up against the wall so they can't move.

I know the two Winchesters both can see me but they're still trying to hide their expressions from the demons, who haven't caught on that I'm there yet.

In a fluid, trained motion, I swing the salt of can around, spraying them both with it. At the same time, they both flinch and make whining noises. Salt stings, for them at least. Sam and Dean drop from the wall, and Sam stoops to pick up the demon-killing knife from the floor.

I would rather not kill children, albeit possessed children, but the truth is they're probably already dead, and killing them would mean two more demons gone from the world, or anywhere else for that matter.

It still makes me cringe when Sam has strode across the room in two steps and killed the older kid. As the kid crumples to the ground, I can see the shocked expression in the jet-black eyes on his face.

"You little…" the little boy starts muttering in that creepy adult-sounding voice.

"You're not really one to be calling anyone little, kid," Sam says, and with another quick motion, the second child is dead.

I sink to my knees in shock. Too many demons. I don't know how the Winchesters deal with it.

Sam turns almost immediately from the demon boy he's just killed to face me, concern replacing the fury that had been there.

"Katie," he breathes, and he runs over, kneeling next to me and wrapping his arms around me protectively. As if there's anything to protect me from now. All the demons are dead. Still, it feels nice, so I lean into it a little bit. He leans back, puts his hands on my shoulders, and holds me out for inspection. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," I lie with a nod, even though my eyes are red and there are tear marks on my face. "No," I admit when I see the doubtful expression on Sam's face.

"It'll be okay," he says, giving me another hug. "You'll be okay soon. I'm so glad you're not hurt."

Dean clears his throat behind us and we both get quickly to our feet. Dean steps over to me and gives me a bear hug. "I'm happy you're still with us, Kate," he says, giving me another squeeze before releasing me.

Sam wraps an arm around me and kisses the top of my head. "We both are."

_[A/N: Thanks for reading! Please leave a review. Just a heads up, I'm going to be ending this fic soon, sorry~]_


	18. Epilogue: Carry On My Wayward Son

_Six months later_

"Sam!" I shout. He tosses me one of his two machetes. Mine's been knocked out my hand and we're in the middle of a clash with five remaining vampires (there had been seven to start) against just the three of us, so I need something to fight with.

It's not my first vampire hunt. It's probably my fourth or fifth, really. They're pretty common, and I'm used to them at this point despite how terrifying vampires can be sometimes.

I duck down as a vampire reaches for me and then spin around to cut off his head. One down, four to go. Dean and Sam simultaneously cut off the heads of the two vampires they're fighting. Okay, two to go.

Besides vampires, I've killed all types of things in the past six months. More ghosts, demons, minor deities, rougarou, a werewolf. I've been told that there's more out there, angels and leviathans and biblical horrors like that (yes, I called angels horrors. From what I hear, they're dicks). My life has been utter chaos since I uprooted it to join the Winchester boys, giving up my aspiring career as a psychologist. But I've loved every second of it.

Another vampire snaps at my wrist, but I manage to stumble out of the way, pulling a syringe out of my jacket pocket with the other hand as I do so. I plunge the syringe into the vampire's neck and push down the plunger. It's full of dead man's blood, so it'll slow her down as I regain my footing.

Okay, maybe I haven't loved _every_ second. But still, honestly, I never wanted a normal life anyway. As horrible as this life seems from the outside, hunting down the stuff of nightmares, I can't imagine living any other way. Or with anybody else. I've grown close to the two Winchester brothers, Sam in particular.

I hear a slashing sound and a head rolls by me. Just one more left. With the last vampire lethargic with dead man's blood, it's easy for me with one cut to take off her head.

Done. Another nest cleared out.

We all stand there panting for a moment before moving to clean everything up.

Don't get me wrong though, there are things that are tough about this. It's been a long time but I still sometimes wake up in a cold sweat remembering the few hours that I had been possessed by a demon. I mean, that's one of the things that I will never forget. It's changed me. But there will always be things that will. Like Dean and Sam were changed by hell, or the loss of their father, or their angel friend betraying them.

Even after things settled down after my experiences with the demons, they never really got calm, either. There were always new things to hunt, new tragedies happening. Nothing big with me or the Winchesters, but we met up sometimes with other hunters and some of them died along the way, and the stories they told were heartbreaking.

We finish dragging the vamps' bodies and heads into a pile, then pour on some gasoline and light it up. I remember the first time we had to do this, moving the heads and decapitated bodies around, I was almost sick. It's pretty nasty work before you're used to it.

We go to the Impala and climb in, Dean in the front driving, Sam and me in the back. I got a bite on my neck from a vamp who managed to get a little too close for comfort. Fortunately, he missed all the vital arteries and Sam took him out before he could do much damage. Still, the bite needs to be disinfected and stitched up, so Sam's taking care of it for me.

We're still together, even after all this time. Yeah, there've been a few tough times. There always is in this life. When you care about someone, you don't want them taking any risks that could lead to them getting hurt, even if it's entirely necessary. It can be tough. But we've worked it out every time anyway, much to Dean's annoyance. He's tired of us kicking him out of the motel room so frequently.

We've got a few hundred miles to go until our next hunt so I close my eyes and try to block out the pain from the cut on my neck as Sam patches it up. It's not too bad. This is only one of a hundred injuries I've gotten since I've been with the boys.

And there will be hundreds more. Because after the hunt we're headed to, we'll move on to the next one, and the next, and the next. Because that's what we do. We carry on.

* * *

_[A/N: Thank you so much if you've stuck with the story this long! I hope you liked it. If you did, you should leave a review…_

_Anyway, that's it. The end. Thank you again for reading!]_


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